Historic site · YUNNAN · UNESCO
Lijiang Old Town (Dayan)
丽江古城 · Lìjiāng Gǔchéng
About
1,000-year-old Naxi old town in northwest Yunnan. UNESCO-listed since 1997. Cobbled lanes, water canals, the Naxi minority's pictographic Dongba script.
Lijiang Old Town (Dayan) is the centre of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes the Naxi-village complexes of Shuhe and Baisha. The town has been inhabited by the Naxi people, an ethnic minority with their own pictographic script (Dongba, the only living pictographic script in the world), for around a thousand years. The cobbled lanes follow the contours of the small river system that runs through the old town, with the Black Dragon Pool (Heilongtan) to the north framing the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain on clear mornings.
The Old Town has become heavily commercialised — high-tariff cafes and souvenir shops dominate the main streets — but the side lanes still retain quieter Naxi family courtyards, and the smaller Shuhe Old Town just north is much calmer.
How to get there
Walk from any city accommodation. Lijiang Sanyi airport bus to the Old Town North Gate.
When to visit
Early morning or evening to avoid daytime tour groups.
Gallery
Other attractions in Lijiang
Itineraries featuring this site
- Yunnan loop — Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La
10d · The northwest Yunnan circuit through Bai, Naxi and Tibetan culture.
- First-timer China — 14 days with Yunnan loop
14d · Two weeks covering the Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai circuit plus a Yunnan extension through Kunming, Dali and Lijiang — the combination that most first-time visitors leave wishing they had done.
- Slow travel China — 14 days, fewer cities, deeper neighbourhoods
14d · Fourteen days in just three cities — Xi'an, Chengdu and Lijiang — spending four to five nights in each to move beyond the headline sights into daily rhythms, local markets and neighbourhood life.
- Yunnan deep loop — Kunming to Tengchong, 14 days
14d · Fourteen days through the full breadth of Yunnan: Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La, the Yuanyang terraces, Jianshui and the geothermal fields of Tengchong — the province's different climates, altitudes and minorities in one loop.
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