A Peaceful Ancient Village in Guilin’s Guanyang County

Guilin has several ancient towns, such as Daxu Ancient Town, Huangyao Ancient Town and Fuli Ancient Town. Here, I would like to introduce you to a peaceful ancient village, which is about 150 kilometers (3.5 hours) from the Guilin urban area.

Yueling Ancient Village (月岭村) is located in Wenshi Town, Guanyang County (灌阳县文市镇), being famous for unique dwellings that use the typical architectural styles of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Moreover, the ancient village is quite well-kept, allowing you  to imagine the daily life of hundreds of years ago from the houses and the household items.  

The village was built during the end of the Ming Dynasty, and has a history of more than 700 years. The Tang (唐) family moved there to escape the chaos caused by war during the changing of dynasties. The Tang family developed the area into a village that today houses with 470 families (about 1,500 people).  

The unique houses and courtyards were linked by flagging. The representative architecture is the Six Courtyards (六大院), which was built to incluse 6 courtyards: Cuide Hall (翠德堂), Hongyuan Hall (宏远堂), Duofu Hall (多福堂), Wenming Hall (文明堂) and Xigu Hall (锡嘏堂). Each courtyard consists of eight or nine detached houses, linked by corridor or wing room. All of the houses were built using black bricks and green tiles, and were decorated with carved beams and painted rafters.

An ancient well in the village with a unique appearance

A general temple (将军庙) in the village, to commemorate General Yue Fei (岳飞), a famous general during the North Song Dynasty (960-1127).

Recommended Nearby Attraction

Stone Forest (石林)
The Stone Forest is also located in Wenshi Town, not far from Yueling Village.

Recommended Local Snack

Oil Tea
Oil tea is a special way to drink tea. The dried tea leaves are stir-fried with cooking oil, salt, and sesame, using a hammer-like wooden pestling in the mixture until the flavor comes out. Then, water is poured in and boiled. The oil tea is served as a soup, with popcorn, peanuts,chopped green onion, sour pepper, and other snacks.