Lili Town, set in the eastern part of the Taihu Lake Basin of the alluvial plain of the Yangtze River Delta where Jiangsu, Zhejiang Provinces and Shanghai meet, has long been known as "the border city of Wu (Jiangsu Province) and Yue (Zhejiang Province)”. Lili has flat land, and myriads of rivers, lakes, ponds and marshes; its ground elevation is between 3.0 to 4.2 meters, and elevation of lakes and rivers, except Taipu River, is between 1.0-0.9 meters in average.
At the outskirt of the ancient town, the ecological landscape of lakes, rivers, farm lands, forests and towns linked up by a common river remain as it was, while inside the Lili town, the layout and features of a commercial town built along the river typical of the region South of the Yangtze River in Ming and Qing Dynasties, is also kept. The river-street layout comes mostly in forms of “house-street-river-street-house” and “house-street-river-shed-house”, in which streets parallel to rivers, roads constructed along rivers, towns formed around rivers and houses, in various space arrangement, built by side of rivers.
The history of Lili Town could date back to 2500 years ago when our ancestors started to settle and live here. It became a market place in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, it has grown into a big town in Wujiang City. In the Jiaqing Period of Qing Dynasty (1796-1820), Lili Town has already developed into a major business and trade center. After the Xinhai Revolution, Lili had already been claimed as one of the six major towns of Wujiang City. Lili has preserved a large number of buildings established in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Most of the architectures in Lili are in courtyard style. The Top Eight Names in Lili Town “Zhou, Chen, Li, Kuai, Nu, Lu, Xu and Cai” all have their stores on the street. These stores are not so extravagant, but the mansions behind them are large and amazingly complicated, usually in 6 to 8 yards. From entrance to rear are entrance hall, tea hall, and main hall, then followed by houses, typically chamber houses, mostly the “walking horse building or four-sided buildings connected on a common corridor”, and at the rear--the servants’ rooms. There are 115 lanes in different shapes in Lili, 90 of which are hidden lanes and more than 50 of which are over 50 meters long. As a famous historical and cultural town in China, Lili is home to Liu Yazi Memorial Hall, Hongshou Hall, Luoya Grass Hall, Dongsheng Hall, Zhou Gongfu Hall, Duanben Garden, Xihu Temple. There are 1 Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level, 2 Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the Provincial Level, and 17 Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the Municipal Level. Moreover, a total number of 75 buildings, with an area of 130,740 square meters, are proclaimed as historical buildings by the government.
