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The ancient city of Lijiang is found in Dayan Town, a largely Naxi settlement first built during the Southern Song Dynasty some eight centuries ago. With a history of over 800 years, Dayan Town is one of the few places in China with well-preserved old style folk buildings. Consequently, this area has become known as the "Second Suzhou". With the famous Sifang Road (which literally means four directions in Chinese) at its core, roads here are mostly paved with stone boards, an ingenious approach developed in ancient times by local people to save cleaning efforts! In December 1986, the State Council designated the place as a famous ancient historical and cultural city of a national caliber. In 1997, the UNESCO put Lijiang on a list of the world's major cultural heritages.
With Sifang Street at the core, the entire city spreads out in all direction, and is crisscrossed by a labyrinth of flagged streets and alleyways. Most of the dwellings, scattered at the foot of a mountain or by the rivers which flow through every nook and corner of the city, are brick-and-tile structures with carved doors and painted windows. Traffic across the rivers is facilitated by a large number of tiny stone bridges. The entire city is evocative of a town south of the Yangtze River.
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