Fenghuang (Phoenix Town)

Restored Ming-Qing river town in western Hunan. Wooden stilt-houses (diaojiaolou) along the Tuojiang River, Tujia and Miao minority culture, dramatically lit at night.

Fenghuang ('Phoenix') is a small Ming-Qing town in western Hunan, on the Tuojiang River. The stilt-house architecture along the riverbanks — Tujia and Miao traditional wooden houses on stilts above the water — is the distinctive cultural-architectural feature. Stone-paved streets, more than two dozen ancestral halls and temple complexes, and a continuous Tujia-Miao cultural tradition give the town genuine depth alongside the heavy commercialisation.

The novelist Shen Congwen, whose 1934 'Border Town' is one of the canonical 20th-century Chinese novels, was from Fenghuang. His former residence and the surrounding old-town streets are the literary-tourism core.

Nightly illumination of the river houses is the canonical photograph. Heavily commercialised; mid-week early-morning is the calmer experience. Multi-hour drive from Changsha; combine with Zhangjiajie for a 5-day western Hunan trip.