Introduction of the Phoenix Ancient Town

The Phoenix Ancient Town is located in Xiangxi Tujia & Miao Autonomous Prefecture,Hunan Province,and also border on the  southwestern Guizhou Province and the West Songtao, Tongren County.It is one of the smaller counties in Hunan,but now it is known as the most beautiful ancient town for its long history and well-preserved appearances.The name of Phoenix town mainly derived from the Phoenix Mountain which is in a phoenix shape.
The Phoenix town today consist of 5 zones and 27 townships. With 300,000 people, which is a multi-ethnic County with Miao, Han, Tujia, and so on. The County is in sub-tropical moist monsoon climate,and the average annual temperature is 15.9 ℃.
Phoenix is not only rich in natural resources,beautiful mountains and rivers, but also possessing many scenic and historical sites. Next are 9 famous spots in the ancient town.

9 famous Sightseeings in the town（凤凰古城九大景点）：
(1)Tuojiang River（沱江）：

-It’s the mother river of this ancient town. Choose to take a boat covered with black matting and tour along the river,go sightseeing the Miao wooden house projecting over the water along either side of the bank river,hearing the boatman’s folk songs, you will feel yourself keeping far away from the mortal life.

(2)Hongqiao Art Building（虹桥）：
It lies above the Tuo River,crisscrossing with the National Street,and makes up a folk picture of the ancient town’s marketplace.Hongqiao is an ancient building with a history of more than six hundred years,It was built at the beginning of Hongwu in Ming Dynesty,and consists of two floors.The first floor is a capacious pavement for people to come and go,with make shops on both side,selling all knids of folk arts and crafts,local specialities,etc. Live applauses of hawking and whispers of bargaining makes up a Feihuang “riverside scene at qingming festival”. The second floor is the belvedere and also demonstrating the tea ceremony.Go up to the second floor, overlooking the whole beauty of phoenix town,savoring a cup of tea,you will fell completely relaxed and joyfull.

(3)The Former Residence of Shencongwen（沈从文故居）：
Shencongwen is a famous litterateur,historian and expert in ancient artifacts in China,who is also known as the father of the native literary world. His valuable creation of more than 900 million words works contribute a lot to the research on china and the Xiangxi area.The residence was built in the 5th year of Tongzhi,Qing Dynesty(1866),it is a wooden courtyard dwellilngs and now listed as provincial units of cultural relics protection.Shencongwen was born in Dec.28th,1902 and spent his childhood and adolescence here.

(4) The Former Residence of Xiongxiling（熊希龄故居）：
It is situated in a lane at north Wenxing street an about 200meters away fron Tuo River.The residence is also a wooden-tiling courtyard in a southern archaistic style and full of Miao amorous feelings.On June 25th,1689(Lunar Calender), Xiong xiling was born and spent his childhood here.In 1913,he was elected as the first prime minister of the Republic of China,but later he was forced to resign due to his against of the Yuan shikai’s restoration of the monarchy.In his later year,he devoted himself to the charities and education career.in 1920,he set up thje famous Xiangshan infant-asylum.Xiong xiling passed away on Dec.25,1937,and the republic government held a state funeral ceremony for him.

(5)The Ancestral Hall of Yang（杨家祠堂）：
It was founded in the 16th year of Daoguang,Qing Dynesty(1836), and was a wooden courtyard covering 770 square meters.The stage was built with single eave, and the pillars were all carved with dragon and phoenix. The gable was in cat back arch,the windows, doors and eave decorations were all hollowed out with flowers,  and the whole building had a distinctive national character and high artistic value of the architecture.

(6)Wanshou Palace（万寿宫）：
Wangshou Palace,also called Jiangxi Assembly Hall,was built during the 20th year of Qianlong,Qing Dynesty,covering 4000 square meters.It consists of the tri-gate,stage,main hall and Xiachang pavilion. The structured and unique style,attic stage, great pillar,etc,show the exquisite workmanship at that time.In 1999, it’s listed as state county units of cultural relics protection.Now the Wanshou Palace is the folk museum of Phoenix town:the first floor is folk customs hall and hundred years chamber of commerce hall;the second floor is the art gallery of Huang yongyu.

(7)Chongde Hall（崇德堂）：
It is a typical southern courtyard built by Pei shoulu,a businessman from Fengcheng,jiangxi province in 1884.The pheonix rose at the beginning of Qing Dynesty and become the capital of the great west Hunan.The Moving-in of the military and political leaders not only bring officials,but also vendors,peons,scholars,artificers,etc.Pei shoulu became the richest man in Phoenix town,he set up his own business entity “Pei Sanxing”and built this ancient courtyard.From this building,you will know how glorious his family was and how prosperous the phoenix town was.

(8)The Eastern Gate Tower（东门城楼）：
Located at east of the town and nearby Tuo River,formerly known as “Shenghen Gate”,the Eastern Tower is one of the four gates of phoenix ancient town.It was built in Kangxi fifty years (1715),Qing Dynesty.The lower part of the tower were built with amaranthine sandstone and the upper part with ancient bricks. The Gates is 3.5 m wide,four meters high, showing a semicircle arch. Two gates were both covered with iron sheets and nailed with rounded-headed nails to make it firm and strong. The wall was built with red sand stone in the same size and is about 0.8m thick, both sides of the lower part were with stone stripes and  crushed stones in the middle layer. On the top of the  intermediate filler was instead of lime, pebbles, loess blended into the crushed, about 0.33 meters thick. The gate tower is 11 meters high,and there are eight loopholes at the door.All the designs and decorations are exquisite and spectacular,

(9)The Museum of Ancient Town（古城博物馆）：
The museum is another humanities landscape in this ancient town.Here,it displays a toaristocratic family-Chenbaozhen family’s history cultural heritage, belongings, photos of the passed, pictures, material, books, documents, etc.which were donated by Chenbaozhen’s descendants.
Museum also displays more than 500 kinds of rock specimens and paleontology fossils millions of years ago.Through stereo sand table combining Chinese and English two languages,the modern technology such as electricity, light, sounds, etc.are used to fully display the geological landforms of phoenix national geological parks and the evolution of earth and rock layer evolution, biological evolution etc.