Fenghuang Ancient Town is the old quarter of Tuojiang, the county seat of Fenghuang County at the southern edge of the Xiangxi prefecture beside Guizhou. Laid out around the natural bend of the Tuo river and built from 1704, it was for two centuries a garrison town on the Miao frontier, seat of a general and his wall. More than half its people belong to the Miao and Tujia minorities, and the town counts the writer Shen Congwen among its sons. Now on UNESCO's tentative list and rated 5A in 2024, it balances a vast visitor economy against the needs of a living county seat.
Fenghuang was a garrison of six thousand residents and eight thousand soldiers before it was a postcard, and the Tuo river still runs the town's middle. Its 5A rating, its maglev and its floods all belong to the same century.