Древний город Хуэйшань

Huishan Ancient Town is a nationally rated 5A tourist attraction on the northern edge of Wuxi's Xihui park complex, formed by the merger of the older Xihui Scenic Area with the historic Huishan Street district. It is one of the densest concentrations of historical architecture in the city, built around the foot of Huishan Hill and watered by the springs and streams that have shaped the area for centuries, making it an essential stop for visitors interested in classical gardens, religious architecture, and Jiangnan urban history.

The town's most distinctive feature is its extraordinary concentration of ancestral halls. A large number of these lineage halls, built by prominent local families over the Ming and Qing dynasties and into the Republican era, line the district's narrow lanes and canal-side paths, each with its own carved doorways, courtyard layouts, and family histories. The density and variety of these halls give Huishan a character distinct from Wuxi's other old streets, with whole neighborhoods built around family and clan identity rather than commerce alone. Alongside the halls, the town is also known for its clay figurine workshops and the Wuxi Clay Figurine Museum, which showcases the small, brightly painted figures that have been a local craft for centuries.

Within and around the town sit several of Wuxi's most important historical sites. Jichang Garden, a classical Jiangnan garden first laid out in the Ming dynasty, is one of the finest surviving examples of the garden style in the city and was admired by the Qing emperors on their southern tours. Huishan Temple, founded in the Northern and Southern dynasties period, preserves ancient trees, stone inscriptions, and a setting immortalized in the famous Tang-dynasty poem "Min Nong" by Li Shen. The nearby Second Spring Under Heaven, a celebrated spring ranked by the Tang-dynasty tea scholar Lu Yu, is the source of water that nurtured the work of the blind folk musician Abing, whose erhu masterpiece "Erquan Yingyue" ("The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring") carries the spring's name.

Because of its density and range, Huishan Ancient Town rewards half a day or more for a proper visit, and it combines naturally with the neighboring Xihui Scenic Area and a climb up Huishan or Xishan hills. Its location just west of central Wuxi also makes it one of the easier major attractions to reach from the city's downtown hotels and restaurant districts.