Three Settlements Make Up the Old Town of Lijiang

The phrase “Old Town of Lijiang” can suggest one compact quarter of lanes and shopfronts. UNESCO’s property description is more expansive. It names three component parts: Dayan, including Heilong Pool; the Baisha housing cluster; and the Shuhe housing cluster. They belong to one protected cultural landscape, but the designation does not make them interchangeable or identical in age, layout, or everyday function.

The distinction matters because the better-known image of Lijiang often begins and ends in Dayan. Baisha lies north of it, while Shuhe forms another settlement beyond the central town. UNESCO describes Baisha as an earlier residential cluster organized around a terraced square; Dayan became a commercial centre, and the three together record different periods of social and economic life. A reader can therefore follow not one frozen town plan, but a settlement network shaped over time.

The shared landscape is visible in the relationship between water and construction. Springs and rivers from the surrounding mountains feed Heilong Pool and channels that enter the town. In Dayan, streets and small lanes meet canals, and bridges carry movement across them. The setting is not scenery placed behind architecture: the water system helps explain why the settlements took the forms they did and how the urban spaces connected houses, routes and daily needs.

UNESCO’s description also points to timber-framed, tile-roofed houses, courtyards, gateways and carved wooden details. It identifies cultural elements associated with Naxi, Han, Bai and Tibetan traditions in the property. These are observations about a particular historic landscape, not a template for every household or a claim that all communities lived the same way. The designation provides a framework for comparison; close reading still begins with a specific building, settlement and date.