Xizhou喜洲

Xizhou — Hex·jix in the Bai language — began as a Sui-dynasty garrison town and rose under the Nanzhao Kingdom as Dalicheng, one of its ten great settlements. It's called an open-air museum of Bai architecture for good reason: over 15,000 traditional houses survive here, 151 of them a century old, and the town's Bai architecture cluster was listed for national protection in 2001. The town sits on the plain between the Cangshan range and Erhai Lake, where eighteen mountain streams irrigate some of the region's best rice land — whitewashed houses ringed by paddies is the town's defining image. In modern times the Xizhou merchant clans (Yan Zizhen's Yongchangxiang house above all) built a nationwide tea trade and left textbook compounds like the Yan mansion behind; during the war, Huazhong University relocated here and taught for seven years, adding a chapter of education history all Xizhou's own. Today it's quieter than Dali Old Town and more polished than you might expect — still a living town where people farm, market and get on with life.

Nature

A paddy plain fed by Cangshan's eighteen streams

• The town sits on a narrow plain between Cangshan's nineteen peaks and Erhai's western shore, irrigated by eighteen mountain streams — prime rice land for centuries
• The fields keep a strict calendar: canola blooms March-April, green rice waves July-September, and golden grain from late September to mid-October — the photography window
• The paddies beyond the Linden Centre's yellow wall are the classic frame; the quieter 'Langqiao' paddies near Xiangyangxi village (~6km out) are the lower-key alternative
• The Erhai eco-corridor cycling route passes through Xizhou, making the town a favorite mid-ride stop

Culture

Courtyards, merchants, indigo — and a wartime university

• 'Three houses and a screen wall' and 'four courts, five skywells' define Bai courtyard design — the Yan compound (begun 1907, 103 rooms) is the most complete example
• The Xizhou merchant clans, led by Yan Zizhen's Yongchangxiang house, ran a nationwide tea trade; in 1936 the Yans added the Western-style Garden No. 5
• Zhoucheng is China's largest Bai village and the official 'home of Bai tie-dye art' — administratively one of Xizhou town's thirteen villages
• From 1939 to 1946 Huazhong University taught in exile here, based in Dacisi Temple — now the site of its relocation memorial