Pingyao Ancient City

Pingyao Ancient City fills the seat town of Gutao in Pingyao County, on the east bank of the Fen River near the southwestern edge of the Taiyuan Basin. Its walls were raised in 1370, the third year of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming, and they enclose a street plan that has changed little since. The old county name was Pingtao; it became Pingyao in the Northern Wei, when officials avoided writing the emperor's personal name. Around the town the county holds 1,075 registered immovable cultural relics, 143 protected at some level, including 20 at the national level. The settlement and the outer temples of Zhenguo and Shuanglin became a World Heritage Site in 1997.