Jiangsu
Discover Jiangsu
Introduction
Jiangsu sits on the Yangtze delta just north of Shanghai, and it is the flattest, wettest and historically richest province in China — a plain of canals, lakes and rice paddies that has been the country’s economic heartland since the Grand Canal linked it to the northern capitals in the seventh century.
Suzhou is the reason most visitors come. Built on water two and a half thousand years ago, it was where retired officials and merchants built private gardens as compositions in rock, water and framed views; nine of them are UNESCO-listed, and the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lingering Garden are the two usually seen first. Suzhou was also the centre of Chinese silk production and still is, and it is close enough to Shanghai for a day trip.
Nanjing, the provincial capital, was the national one under several dynasties, holds the Ming founder’s tomb and the city walls, and carries the memorial to the 1937 massacre. Yangzhou and Zhenjiang are canal towns on the old salt trade, and Lake Tai supplies both the strange perforated rocks that Chinese gardens are built around and the region’s freshwater fish. Spring and autumn are comfortable; the summer here is hot and humid enough to be genuinely difficult.