Liangxi Old Town

Liangxi was the old county administrative and commercial core of Wuxi — a Jiangnan market town that prospered on silk production, rice trading, and position along the Grand Canal between Suzhou and Changzhou. The old-town area retains a more compressed historic fabric than adjacent Suzhou, but the surviving streetscape around the Chong-an Temple precinct gives a reasonable impression of a prosperous late-Qing commercial town.

The Grand Canal corridor through Wuxi is one of the better-maintained stretches of the ancient canal in the entire Jiangnan region. The waterway here is still commercially active — barge traffic transports bulk goods through the city — and the canal-side walking paths on both banks provide a clear sense of how the waterway shaped the city's development. The Qingming Bridge area, a Qing-dynasty stone arch bridge over a canal tributary, is the most photographed heritage element in Wuxi.

Wuxi was one of the principal silk-weaving centres of the Yangtze Delta in the late Qing and Republican period. The former Tongchang Silk Filature, now partly preserved as a heritage building near the canal, is one of the physical survivals of this industrial history; a number of the surrounding streets take their names from the silk trade.

Xicheng Water Street, a restored canal-side commercial corridor, presents the Jiangnan waterway aesthetic in a form designed for visitors — teahouses, crafts shops, and small restaurants occupying restored shophouses along a narrow canal branch.