Famous Chinese Gardens
Royal Gardens
- Summer Palace: The largest royal garden in the world.
- Chengde Mountain Resort: Located in north of Chengde, Mountain Resort is the largest existed classical royal garden in China. The garden was constructed in 1703 and finished 89 years later. Covering 5,640,000 square meters, the garden is twice as large as the Summer Palace, eight times as large as Beihai Park. The garden is not only large in scale, but also makes the best use of the existed natural beauty to arrange and design the man-made project. Mountain Resort is highly praised as the best model of Chinese classical gardens because it assimilated the tradition of the past dynasties and experience of gardens in South Yangtze River as to reach a unprecedented level of gardening.
Private Gardens
In order to represent the natural surrounding, rockery is very important in building gardens. Liangji in the Eastern Han Dynasty made two artificial mountains by imitation Yin Gorge and Luo Gorge, which is the start of? life-based gardening.
Famous Private Gardens in Suzhou
Suzhou is a Chinese city renowned for its long history, beautiful natural views and classical gardens. The classical gardens in Suzhou are nominated as one of the Top Ten National Landscapes in China. In December 1997, it was registered in the World Cultural Heritage list by UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Famous for their exquisite and free styles as well as elegance, the gardens in Suzhou directly reflect the history and development of Chinese private gardens. They all have distinct artistic patterns in arrangement and structure. Zhuozheng Garden, Liu Garden, Huanxiu Villa and Wangshi Garden are most typical among them. These gardens represent the brilliant architecture and residential civilization in ancient China and are considered to be priceless treasure of Chinese traditional culture.
Famous Private Gardens in Yangzhou
Yangzhou is a communication center connecting north and south in China. The gardens in Yangzhou are also famous for the combination of the northern gardens' grandness and southern gardens' elegance. In the period of its great prosperity, there is a saying that "The beauty of gardens in Yangzhou is best in the world."
Ge Garden: Ge garden is famous for the exquisitely placed rockeries. Different rocks are used in presenting the different scenery in the four seasons. So it is calls Four Seasons Rockeries. The stalagmites are inserted in the bamboo forest to indicate spring. The lake stones by lotus pool are laid to materialize summer. When climbing up the Huangshi Rockery sitting east and facing west, you can feel the autumn view. The snow rocks are used to indicate winter. Walking around the garden, tourists will have a wonderful feeling of experiencing one year.
