Three Settlements Make Up the Old Town of Lijiang
The World Heritage property is not a single old-town core: Dayan, Baisha and Shuhe preserve different settlement histories within one listed landscape.
Lijiang.
Lijiang’s listed old town comprises three settlement components, whose histories and forms remain distinct. Waterways, courtyards and market space connect architecture with movement. Dongba writing and handmade paper introduce Naxi textual and material traditions, while Baisha’s paintings require their own religious and artistic contexts. Beyond the old town, Yulong’s vertical ecology, Lugu Lake’s provincial boundary and Lijiang’s bank of Tiger Leaping Gorge open different geographical stories.
Lijiang
From Mountain Springs to Doorstep Canals
Lijiang’s historic water system links a spring-fed pool, branching channels, streets and bridges. Its design is part of the town’s architecture, not a decorative backdrop.
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Lijiang at a Crossroads of Mountain Trade
Routes linking Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet made Dayan a distribution centre. Its streets and bridges record exchange without reducing every connection to a single ‘Tea Horse Road’ story.
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Religious Images on the Walls of Baisha
Baisha’s murals survive across a group of religious buildings. Their subjects and artistic vocabularies invite close looking, while digital displays now mediate how visitors see them.
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How Dongba Writing Continues to Be Read Today
Collected manuscripts and a contemporary public-writing project bring Dongba characters into different settings, connecting Naxi textual history with present-day Lijiang.
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Bark, Fibre and Patience in Dongba Paper
Papermaker He Xiuchang’s explanations, recorded in a published account, follow Daphne bark through the work of preparing fibre and making a sheet.
ReadFour Wings, Five Courtyards: A House in Lijiang
Hengyugong Residence Museum gives a documented example of a courtyard form. Its central court and four smaller light wells make the name a way of understanding space.
ReadRepairing a Living Town: Residents and Lijiang’s Heritage
Heritage protection in Lijiang reaches into house repairs, construction skills and the boundaries of three settlements. Institutional records show how residents are included in that work.
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Mufu’s Gateway and the Hall of Books
Words above a gateway lead toward the Mu family’s library, linking a governing compound with a history of reading.
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Lugu Lake Crosses a Provincial Boundary
Lugu Lake is often presented as one destination, but its Yunnan and Sichuan shores answer to different administrations. Shared water makes cooperation part of the story.
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The Vertical Life Zones of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
A steep rise from the Jinsha River valley to the summit compresses very different climates and plant communities into one mountain landscape. Research makes that variation visible, while reminding readers that each figure belongs to a dated survey.
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A Mountain in the City’s Frame: Jade Dragon and Lijiang’s View
The city’s northern mountain is more than a skyline: its forest belts, research plots and slope-specific habitats connect urban water and high-altitude ecology.
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Water, Lanes and Trade Memory in Shuhe
Shuhe is one of three parts of the Lijiang World Heritage property, a mountain settlement whose water and position in a regional trade network shaped a distinct place beside Dayan.
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The Lijiang Bank of Tiger Leaping Gorge
The gorge is one river landscape, but the visitor area described as Lijiang’s Tiger Leaping Gorge occupies a particular stretch of its southern bank.
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Old Town of Lijiang
The World Heritage property comprises Dayan, Baisha and Shuhe. Waterways, timber buildings and different settlement histories connect the three components without making them identical.
Heilong Pool and Lijiang Waterways
Mountain rivers and springs feed Heilong Pool before branching into channels. Streets, bridges and houses meet this water network at the scale of daily movement.
Dayan Old Town
Dayan’s market streets and bridges belong to a settlement shaped by regional exchange. Its wider trade role needs to be distinguished from claims about individual lanes or cargoes.
Baisha Mural Complex
Baisha’s paintings survive in several religious buildings. Buddhist, Daoist and other documented imagery needs to be read with the specific wall, building and conservation setting.
Hengyugong Residence Museum
Hengyugong in Dayan documents the Four Wings and Five Courtyards form. Its central court and four smaller light wells give one house a precise spatial identity.
Mufu
Mufu’s gateways, library spaces and exhibitions offer a particular route into Lijiang’s administrative and reading histories. The surviving complex requires attention to rebuilding and interpretation.
Lugu Lake: Lijiang Side
Lugu Lake crosses the Yunnan–Sichuan provincial boundary. The Lijiang-side story needs to keep administrative geography separate from claims about all lakeside communities.
Yulong Snow Mountain
Yulong’s elevation connects different vegetation and habitat zones within one mountain landscape. Glacier forms and ecological accounts introduce separate aspects of that vertical setting.
Shuhe Old Town
Shuhe’s water lanes and market history belong to one of Lijiang’s three listed settlement components. Its own built setting gives local form to wider heritage descriptions.
Tiger Leaping Gorge: Lijiang Bank
The Lijiang bank is one administrative side of Tiger Leaping Gorge. River, cliff and route descriptions need to be located on the particular bank they discuss.
Photo credits and rights
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Shuhe, Lijiang. The Longquan Temple photograph is dated September 2017.Luke Chantrell · 2020-07-07 19:05:58 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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Black Dragon Pool, Lijiang.BrokenSphere · 2008-05-13 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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Lijiang's Sifang Street square in October 2009, identified by the photographer as Lijiang Town Square. The dated view documents the public market space named in this section; it does not depict a historical caravan or prove a particular trade route.Gisling · 2009-10 · CC BY 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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The courtyard of Wenchang Palace, Baisha, photographed in 2007.G41rn8 · 2007-10-13 23:40:49 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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A Dongba paper shop in Lijiang and Dongba paintings on paper in Yunnan Nationalities Museum; neither is a photograph of a papermaking stage.Gisling · 2009-10 · CC BY 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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A furnished hall inside Mu Mansion in Lijiang, with red columns, carved chairs and inscribed plaques.Roller Coaster Philosophy · 2026-04-01 · CC BY 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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Lugu Lake; the 2026 Lover’s Beach views are on the Yunnan side, as identified in their source titles.祝鱼贵 · 2026-02-26 14:28:00 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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A glacier and exposed rock on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, photographed 31 December 2012. The photograph records one glacial feature at this named massif; it is not a slope profile or evidence for the full reserve boundary.Chensiyuan · 2012-12-31 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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Jade Dragon Snow Mountain behind Black Dragon Pool, Lijiang.CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · 2012-04-01 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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Shuhe, Lijiang. The Longquan Temple photograph is dated September 2017.Someone's Moving Castle · 2013-09-13 03:16:36 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
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A view into the upper Tiger Leaping Gorge, with the Jinsha River running below steep rock walls. The Commons page places the photograph at the gorge's beginning north of Lijiang but does not identify which bank; it is used for the shared gorge landscape, not as proof of a Lijiang-bank viewpoint.Arian Zwegers · 1995-06-04 · CC BY 2.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized without cropping or upscaling; converted to WebP.
