Pingyao Ancient Town Travel Guide

Pingyao Ancient Town is located in the center of Shanxi Province in northern China and has a history of 2,700 years. It is the only ancient city in China without modern architecture hundreds of years ago. It's just the narrow streets with classical Chinese style shops. Pingyao is home to a powerful business family and has great business influence outside of Shanxi because they are national companies in the business sector. The ancient city of Pingyao was once the bustling economic center of feudal China and looks the same as it did 600 years ago. Both the history and culture of Pingyao play an important role in China.

Pingyao's Ming and Qing Street

Pingyao's Ming and Qing Street has many mansions, temples, museums, hotels and shops, where do you start exploring? The answer is definitely Ming and Qing Street, the main street of the city.

The street has undergone major renovations, such as hotels offering traditional brick stoves, restaurants serving meat and famous Pingyao shops, and traditional shops selling antiques, furniture, ancient coins, Chinese paintings, jade items and lacquerware. . In recent days, more than 700 shops have been raging on this street, and several of them remain the same as they have for centuries.

On this lively street, there is the tallest building in the city, 18.5 meters high, where you can enjoy the view of the entire urban rooftops.

The Rishengchang Transaction Store

Among the many banks in Pingyao, Rishengchange Transaction Shop is very famous because it was the first Chinese bank that was established in 1643. What started as the efforts of a single businessman to securely manage the accounts of his widely spread company , became a private banking company. A similar phenomenon occurred in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.

Now the Rishengchange transaction shop has been converted into a museum, the headquarters was the same as the Qing Dynasty. There are 21 buildings surrounding the three courtyards. On each side of the front patio are the counters. The main banking activities were carried out in the central courtyard house, which functioned as an exchange center like today.