Changzhou · Jiangsu
Changzhou is the 2,500-year-old city between Nanjing and Shanghai that quietly built China's best dinosaur park — a ¥20 temple under a 153.79 m pagoda, free city parks, and two big theme parks.
The short version
The place itself
Changzhou is the city in the middle that everyone drives past, and it has stopped minding. It is 2,500 years old, it was called the key town of the three Wu and the famous capital of eight districts, and it has the Grand Canal running through it — but in the last twenty years it also built China Dinosaur Park and an animation theme park, and it is quietly pleased with both.
The name is often rendered the city of dragons, and there are two explanations. One is a myth: six of the dragon king's nine sons ended up guarding Changzhou, so the locals raced six-coloured dragon boats on Baiyun Creek at the Dragon Boat Festival and the place became the city of six dragons. The other is political: the Qi and Liang dynasties produced fifteen emperors from here, and the dragon stood for the emperor. Qianlong, who came six times and prayed at Tianning Temple three, wrote the plaque that settled it.
What that leaves you with is a city of odd pairings. A working Tang temple with a 153.79-metre pagoda stands next to the biggest free park in town. A 2,500-year-old walled city with three concentric moats sits beside a theme park with roller coasters named after drills. And in the south, in Liyang, there is a lake that supplies the city's best dish and a bamboo sea with a cable car over it.
It is also a very cheap city to be in. Buses are ¥1, the parks are free, a bowl of silver-thread noodles costs little, and the two-hour round trip to the lake and the bamboo is the only thing that really adds up.
Pins are plotted from real latitude and longitude on a 5° graticule. This is a schematic orientation diagram, not a political map — no boundaries are drawn.
A thousand-year-old monastery called the first monastery of the south-east, facing the Grand Canal and backed by Hongmei Park. Qianlong came three times and left a plaque. Its pagoda is thirteen storeys and 153.79 m — the tallest of the more than 4,000 pagodas in China — decorated with Dongyang wood carving, Yangzhou lacquer, Changzhou random-thread embroidery and Hui'an stone carving.
Called the Jurassic of the east, and it is both a serious museum and a thrill park. The dinosaur hall is the core, with the largest concentration of Chinese dinosaur fossils on display anywhere, and around it are waterfalls, rock faces, a dried-up sea and jungle built to recreate the Mesozoic. Rides include the Sky Tower, Fire-and-Water Power and the Crazy Fire-Dragon Drill.
The line locals use is: Ming and Qing, go to Beijing; Sui and Tang, go to Xi'an; the Spring and Autumn period, come to Yancheng. It is the most complete surviving above-ground city site of that period in China, with three walls and three moats, and it is a national protected site.
Two hours south in Liyang. The lake is called the pearl of Jiangnan and a green fairyland, with the lake, the bamboo sea and the hot springs as its three products; the Nanshan Bamboo Sea has several square kilometres of bamboo, a cable car, and a 12.8 m bronze statue of the god of longevity. This is also where the fish head soup comes from.
Changzhou's best-loved feature is that its good parks are free. Hongmei Park is the biggest, with the thousand-year-old Hongmei Pavilion and eight named views; Qingfeng Park is 45 hectares of city forest with a hundred-metre fountain and a beach; Dongpo Park is a quiet peninsula where Su Dongpo is said to have moored eleven times.
Changzhou made the combs of the palace for 1,500 years, and Biji Lane was the street where every household made them. The food runs to crab-roe soup dumplings, the big sesame cake, silver-thread noodles, the Yancheng vegetarian ham, and the Tianmu Lake fish head soup that is rated one of Jiangsu's best traditional dishes.
Changzhou Benniu International (CZX) sits in Benniu town in Xinbei district, 3 km from the Shanghai–Nanjing expressway and 18 km from the city: bus 32 goes there, the airport bus leaves from the Civil Aviation Building for ¥10, and there are direct minibuses from Nanjing's Civil Aviation Building at 09:00 and from Wuxi at 08:45 and 09:15. By rail there are two stations — Changzhou station on Guanhe West Road, with the south square serving the old Beijing–Shanghai line and the north square the Shanghai–Nanjing intercity high-speed line, and Changzhou North, an elevated station about 8 km from the centre. Coaches leave from the main terminal at 18 Xinfeng Street next to the railway station, with fast services to Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Danyang and Hefei every 30–50 minutes.
Inside the city, buses are ¥1 for an air-conditioned service, ¥0.60 on a card, and there are two BRT rapid-bus lines — Changzhou built the first BRT in Jiangsu and the third in China, after Beijing and Hangzhou. Line 1 runs from Changzhou North to Wujin bus centre over about 29.8 km; line 2 covers about 21.5 km. Taxis start at ¥9 for 3 km, then ¥1.8 a kilometre plus ¥1 fuel, rising to ¥2.7 a kilometre after 6 km and to a ¥12 flagfall with a 30% night surcharge from 11pm. Note that there are only about 2,500 taxis in the whole city, so allow extra time.
| Month | Weather | Crowds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12°C / 4°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
| February | 14°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Very busy | Good |
| March | 18°C / 10°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| April | 24°C / 16°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| May | 28°C / 21°C · cool, damp | Busy | OK |
| June | 32°C / 25°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| July | 35°C / 28°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| August | 34°C / 27°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| September | 29°C / 23°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| October | 24°C / 17°C · clear and mild | Very busy | Best |
| November | 18°C / 11°C · clear and mild | Quiet | Best |
| December | 13°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
Two to three days is the honest answer. Two days covers the two halves: temples, parks and the canal on day one, and the dinosaur park with Play Valley on day two. Three days lets you add the day trip south to Liyang for Tianmu Lake and the Nanshan Bamboo Sea, which is a long day but the best scenery in the municipality. A fourth day buys Yancheng properly rather than as an afterthought, or a day trip to Wuxi, 20 minutes east, or Zhenjiang across the river.
Plan these days properly
Nanjing
Jiangsu · 4 tours
Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu and one of China's four great ancient capitals — capital of six dynasties from 229 AD and of the Republic after 1927
Wuxi
Jiangsu · 4 tours
Wuxi is the city on the north shore of Taihu Lake where a ¥105 peninsula of cherry orchards, a ¥210 Grand Buddha and a free Ming-dynasty old town all
Yangzhou
Jiangsu · 4 tours
Yangzhou is the city on the Grand Canal that the whole of China has been told to visit in the third lunar month — a compact old town of canals, salt-m
Zhenjiang
Jiangsu · 4 tours
Zhenjiang is the city on the south bank of the Yangtze where 3 hills and 1 ferry landing carry an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — Jinshan,
It is worth two or three days rather than a stop. The theme parks are genuinely good, but the surprise is how much else there is for very little money: a Tang temple with the tallest pagoda in China at ¥20, a 2,500-year-old walled city, and a network of large free parks that locals use every day. Most visitors come for the dinosaurs and leave talking about the parks.
¥200 for an adult and ¥100 for a child, open 9:00 to 17:00, with buses 302, 29 and B12 to the park stop. It is the most expensive ticket in the city by a distance, and the one to decide on before you go — the dinosaur hall is a serious museum, but a large part of the ticket is for the rides.
Two competing stories, and both are in circulation. The myth says six of the dragon king's nine sons came to guard Changzhou, so the people built six-coloured dragon boats and raced them on Baiyun Creek at the Dragon Boat Festival, and the city became the city of six dragons. The political version says the Qi and Liang dynasties produced fifteen emperors from here, and since the dragon meant the emperor, the name followed. Qianlong wrote the plaque that confirmed it.
More than in most Chinese cities: Hongmei Park with its thousand-year-old pavilion and eight named views, Qingfeng Park with 45 hectares of city forest, Dongpo Park on its peninsula with the canal running round it, and Biji Lane, the old comb-making street on the canal. All four are free, all day, and all reachable on a ¥1 bus.
Crab-roe soup dumplings first — created at a Wan Hua teahouse in the Daoguang years, with golden crab oil, thin skin and a lot of soup. Then the big sesame cake, sweet or savoury; silver-thread noodles, fine as thread and white as silver; Yancheng vegetarian ham, made since 1932; and the Tianmu Lake fish head soup, which uses only bighead carp raised in the lake and water from the lake.
By rail, and it is a short ride from anywhere on the corridor — Wuxi is about 20 minutes east and Nanjing is a short high-speed hop west over the Shanghai–Nanjing intercity line. Coaches run to Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Zhenjiang and Hefei every 30–50 minutes from the main terminal at 18 Xinfeng Street, and flying into Benniu works too, with a ¥10 airport bus.
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