Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China

🇨🇳 Suzhou, (alternately Soochow), is a major city in south-eastern Jiangsu Province of East China. It is a major economic centre and focal point of trade and commerce, and Jiangsu's second-largest city. The city's north waterfront is on a lower reach of the Yangtze whereas it has its more focal south-western waterfront on Lake Tai – crossed by several waterways, its district belongs to the Yangtze River Delta region.

Administratively, Suzhou is a prefecture-level city. Suzhou is now part of the Greater Shanghai built-up (or metro) area extending from Changzhou in the west to Shanghai in the East incorporating most of Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou urban districts plus Kunshan and Taicang largely conurbated. Its urban population grew at an unprecedented rate of 6.5% between 2000 and 2014, which is the highest among cities with more than 5 million people.

Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou has had a long and productive history. Local museums host abundant displays of its relics and many sites of historical interest exist. Around AD 100, during the Eastern Han Dynasty, it became one of the ten largest cities in the world mostly due to emigration from Northern China. Since the 10th-century, Suzhou has been an important commercial centre and foreign trade of China.

During the late 15th century to 19th century, Suzhou was a national economic, cultural, and commercial centre, as well as the largest non-capital city in the world, until it was overtaken by Shanghai. Since major economic reforms began in 1978, Suzhou has become one of the fastest growing major cities in the world, with GDP growth rates of about 14% in the past 35 years. With high life expectancy and per capita incomes, Suzhou's Human Development Index ratings is roughly comparable to a moderately developed country, making it one of the most highly developed and prosperous cities in China.

Suzhou is also famous for its classical gardens, date back to the 6th century BCE when the city was founded as the capital of the Wu Kingdom. Inspired by these royal hunting gardens built by the King of the State of Wu, private gardens began emerging around the 4th century and finally reached the climax in the 18th century.

Suzhou is also one of the top 50 major cities in the world by scientific research outputs as tracked by the Nature Index, and home to multiple major universities in China, including Soochow University, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and Changshu Institute of Technology.

The city's canals, stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed gardens have contributed to its status as one of the top tourist attractions and liveable cities in China. The Classical Gardens of Suzhou were added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1997 and 2000. Suzhou is often dubbed the "Venice of the East" or "Venice of China".

History

Suzhou, the cradle of Wu culture, is one of the oldest towns in the Yangtze Basin. By the Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou, local Baiyue tribes named the Gou Wu are recorded living in the area which would become the modern city of Suzhou. These tribes formed villages on the edges of the hills above the wetlands surrounding Lake Tai.

Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian records traditional accounts that the Zhou lord Taibo established the state of Wu at nearby Wuxi during the 11th century BC, civilizing the local people and improving their agriculture and mastery of irrigation. The Wu court later moved to Gusu within the area of modern Suzhou. In 514 BC, King Helü of Wu relocated his court nearby and called the settlement Helü City after himself. His minister Wu Zixu was closely involved with its planning and it was this site that grew into present-day Suzhou. The height of his tower on Gusu Hill (Gusutai) passed into Chinese legend. In 496 BC, King Helü was buried at Tiger Hill. In 473 BC, Wu was defeated and annexed by Yue, a kingdom to its southeast; Yue was annexed in turn by Chu in 306 BC. Remnants of the ancient kingdom include pieces of its 2,500-year-old city wall and the gate through it at Pan Gate.

The city was originally laid out according to a symbolic three-by-three grid of nine squares, with the royal palace occupying the central position.

During the Warring States period, Suzhou was the seat of Wu County (吳縣, Wú xiàn) and Commandery (吳郡, Wú jùn). Following the Qin Empire's conquest of the area in 222 BC, it was made the capital of Kuaiji Commandery, including lands stretching from the south bank of the Yangtze to the unconquered interior of Minyue in southern Zhejiang. Amid the collapse of the Qin, Kuaiji's governor Yin Tong attempted to organize his own rebellion only to be betrayed and executed by Xiang Liang and his nephew Xiang Yu, who launched their own rebellion from the city.

When the Grand Canal was completed, Suzhou found itself strategically located on a major trade route. Suzhou served as the regional metropolis of industry and foreign commerce on the south-eastern coast of China. During the Tang dynasty, the great poet Bai Juyi constructed the Shantang Canal (better known as "Shantang Street") to connect the city with Tiger Hill for tourists. In AD 1035, the Suzhou Confucian Temple was founded by famed poet and writer Fan Zhongyan. It became a venue for the imperial civil examinations and then developed into the modern Suzhou High School in the 1910s.

"Sou-tcheou-foo" & other towns of "Kiang-nan" in Du Halde's 1736 Description of China, based on accounts by Jesuit missionaries

After February 1130, riots and unrest disrupted Suzhou. In 1356, Suzhou became the capital of Zhang Shicheng, King of Wu. In 1367, Zhang's rival Zhu Yuanzhang took the city after a 10-month siege. Zhu – who was soon to proclaim himself the first emperor of the Ming dynasty – demolished the old city walls at the centre of Suzhou's walled city and imposed crushing taxes on the city and prefecture's powerful families. Despite the heavy taxation and the forced exile of some prominent citizens' south, Suzhou was soon prosperous again. During the early Ming, Suzhou Prefecture supervised the Yangtze shoals which later became Shanghai's Chongming Island. For centuries the city, with its surroundings as an economic base, represented an extraordinary source of tax revenue.

When the shipwrecked Korean official Choe Bu had a chance to see much of Eastern China from Zhejiang to Liaoning on his way home in 1488, he described Suzhou in his travel report as exceeding every other city. Under the Ming, Suzhou was a prosperous centre of the Nanzhili area controlled by the secondary capital at Nanjing; scholar-officials constructed the area's most famous private gardens during this period in a "Jiangnan style" copied at the time by Shanghai's Yu Garden and later by parts of the empress dowager Cixi's Summer Palace.

After the Qing occupied the area in 1644 and 1645, it was reorganized as Jiangnan Province, whose "Right" Governor controlled its eastern prefectures from Suzhou until the division of Jiangnan into the separate provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui at some point during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. The Taipings captured the city in 1860. Many of its former buildings and gardens were "almost… a heap of ruins" by the time of their recovery by Charles Gordon's Ever-Victorious Army in November 1863. Nonetheless, by 1880, its population was estimated to have recovered to about 500,000, which remained stable for the next few decades. In the late 19th century, the town was particularly known for its wide range of silks and its Chinese-language publishing industry. The town was first opened to direct foreign trades by the Treaty of Shimonoseki ending the First Sino-Japanese War and by the most favored nation clauses of earlier unequal treaties with the Great Powers. The new expatriates opened a European-and-Chinese school in 1900 and the Suzhou railway station, connecting it with Shanghai, opened on 16 July 1906. Just prior to the World War I, there were 7000 silk looms in operation, as well as a cotton mill and a large trade in rice.

Prosperous Suzhou by Xu Yang

As late as the early 20th century, much of the city consisted of islands connected by rivers, creeks, and canals to the surrounding countryside. Prior to their demolition, the city walls ran in a circuit of about 10 miles (16 km) with four large suburbs lying outside. The Japanese invaded in 1937, and many gardens were again devastated by the end of the war. In the early 1950s, restoration was done on the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Lingering Garden.

Administrative divisions

The urban core of Suzhou is informally called the "Old Town". It is Gusu District. Suzhou Industrial Park is to the east of the old town, and Suzhou High & New Technology Development Zone is to the west. In 2000, the original Wu County was divided into two districts including Xiangcheng and Wuzhong. They now form the northern and southern parts of the city of Suzhou. In 2012, the original Wujiang City became Wujiang District of Suzhou City.

Suzhou is one of the most prosperous cities in China. Its development has a direct correlation with the growth of its satellite cities, including Kunshan, Taicang, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang, which together with the city of Suzhou form the Suzhou prefecture. The Suzhou prefecture is home to many high-tech enterprises.

Gusu District, 姑苏区, Gūsū Qū; Suburban Huqiu District, 虎丘区, Hǔqiū Qū; Wuzhong District, 吴中区, Wúzhōng Qū; Xiangcheng District, 相城区, Xiāngchéng Qū; Wujiang District, 吴江区, Wújiāng Qū; *Satellite cities (County-level cities) * Changshu City, 常熟市, Chángshú Shì; Taicang City, 太仓市, Tàicāng Shì; Kunshan City, 昆山市, Kūnshān Shì; Zhangjiagang City, 张家港市, Zhāngjiāgǎng Shì.

Not formal administrative subdivisions – Suzhou Industrial Park & Suzhou New District.

Geography

Suzhou is on the Lake Tai Plain south of the Yangtze River, about 100 km (60 mi) to the west of Shanghai and just over 200 km (120 mi) east of Nanjing.

Economy Suzhou's economy is based primarily on its large manufacturing sector—China's first largest(from 2020)—including iron and steel, IT and electronic equipment, and textile products. The city's service sector is notably well-developed, primarily owing to tourism, which brought in a total of RMB 152 billion of revenue in 2013. Suzhou's overall GDP exceeded RMB 1.3 trillion in 2013 (up 9.6 percent from the year previous).

The city is also one of China's foremost destinations for foreign investment, based on its relative proximity to Shanghai and comparatively low operating costs. The municipal government has enacted various measures to encourage FDI in a number of manufacturing (e.g. pharmaceutical, electronic goods, automobile) and service (e.g. banking, logistics, research services) sectors. Included among these measures is a preferential tax policy for limited partnership venture capital enterprises in the Suzhou Industrial Park.

Suzhou is a highly developed economic region in China and is the economic centre, industrial, commercial and logistical hub city of Jiangsu province, as well as an important financial, cultural, artistic, educational and transportation centre.

Agriculture In 2013, total grain production reached 1,311,200 tonnes, a decrease of 2.9%. Grain supply was effectively guaranteed through the vigourous construction of commodity grain production bases, wholesale grain markets and reserve systems.

Traditional handicrafts Suzhou has a long history of reeling silkworms and has always been an important base for silk production in China. Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, Suzhou has been one of the centres of silk weaving and dyeing in the country, and in the Ming dynasty, the area around Suzhou, Song was the scene of the "clothing of the world".

Development zones Suzhou Industrial Park The Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is the largest co-operative project between the Chinese and the Singaporean government. It is beside Jinji Lake, which lies to the east of the Suzhou Old City. On 26 February 1994, Vice Premier Li Lanqing and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew represented China and Singapore respectively in signing the Agreement to jointly develop Suzhou Industrial Park (originally called the Singapore Industrial Park). The project officially commenced on 12 May in the same year. SIP has a jurisdiction area of 288 km² (111 sq mi), of which, the China-Singapore co-operation area covers 80 km² (31 sq mi) with a planned residential population of 1.2 million.

SIP is home to the Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District, an area of universities and higher education institutions, including Soochow University and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Suzhou Industrial Park is also a popular residential district for many foreigners who work and live in Suzhou, as well as 'new Suzhou' residents who migrated to the area in search of work opportunities.

Suzhou Industrial Park Export Processing Zone The Suzhou Industrial Park Export Processing Zone was approved to be established by the government in April 2000, with a planning area of 2.9 km² (1.1 sq mi). It is in Suzhou Industrial Park set up by China and Singapore. Inside the Export Processing Zone, all the infrastructures are of high standard.

Suzhou New District The Suzhou New District was established in 1990. In November 1992, the zone was approved to be the national-level hi-tech industrial zone. By the end of 2007, foreign-invested companies had a registered capital worth of US$13 billion, of which US$6.8 billion was paid in. SND hosts now more than 1,500 foreign companies. Some 40 Fortune 500 companies set up 67 projects in the district.

Sport Suzhou Dongwu currently play in China League One, the second highest level of Chinese professional football competition. The 13,000 seat Suzhou Industrial Park Sports Arena was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Transport: Rail Suzhou is on the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor which carries three parallel railways. Suzhou railway station, near the city centre, is among the busiest passenger stations in China. It is served by the Beijing–Shanghai railway (mostly "conventional" trains to stations throughout China) and the Shanghai-Nanjing intercity railway (high-speed D- and G-series trains providing frequent service primarily between Shanghai and Nanjing). It takes only 25 minutes to reach Shanghai railway station on the fastest G-series trains and less than 1 hour to Nanjing.

The Suzhou North railway station, a few km to the north, is on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway (opened 2011), served by high-speed trains to Beijing, Qingdao, etc.

Other stations on the Beijing–Shanghai railway and the Shanghai–Nanjing intercity railway serve other points in the same corridor within Suzhou Prefecture-level city, such as Kunshan. In between Suzhou and Kunshan South railway station, Suzhou Industrial Park railway station is also an important station for people visiting and living in the areas.

The northern part of the prefectural area, including Zhangjiagang, Changshu and Taicang, were the last areas to be connected by rail; the Shanghai–Suzhou–Nantong railway reached there in 2020.

Transport: Road The Nanjing-Shanghai Expressway connects Suzhou with Shanghai, alternatively, there is the Yangtze Riverine Expressway and the Suzhou-Jiaxing-Hangzhou Expressway. In 2005, the Suzhou Outer Ring was completed, linking the peripheral county-level cities of Taicang, Kunshan, and Changshu. China National Highway 312 also passes through Suzhou.

Water transport Port of Suzhou, on the right bank of the Yangtze River, dealt with 428 million tons of cargo and 5.86 million TEU containers in 2012, which made it the busiest inland river port in the world by annual cargo tonnage and container volume.

Transport: Metro The Suzhou Rail Transit currently has five lines in operation and five other lines under construction. The masterplan consists of nine independent lines. Line 1 started operation on 28 April 2012, Line 2 started operation on 28 December 2013, and Line 4 started operation in 2017, Suzhou Railway Line 5 began operation in June 2021. Line 6, Line 7 and Line 8 and Line 11 are under construction. The Suzhou rail system is expected to connect to the Shanghai Metro system by June 2023.

Transport: Tram The Suzhou Tram system has two routes in the Suzhou New District.

Transport: Bus Suzhou has public bus routes that run into all parts of the city. Fares are flat rated, usually 1 Yuan for a non-air-conditioned bus and 2 Yuan for an air-conditioned one. The Suzhou BRT, a 25-kilometer (16 mi)-long bus rapid transit system opened in 2008, operates 5 lines using elevated busways and bus-only lanes throughout the city.

Culture • Opera: Kunqu originated in the Suzhou region, as does the much later Suzhou Opera. Ballad-singing, or Suzhou pingtan, is a local form of storytelling that mixes singing (accompanied by the pipa and sanxian) with portions in spoken dialect. • Silk: throughout China's Imperial past, Suzhou silk has been associated with high-quality silk products, supplying silks to ancient royal families. By the 13th century, Suzhou was already the centre of the profitable silk trade. • Song brocade: Suzhou's Song brocade, with its flashy colors, exquisite patterns, strong and soft texture, is one of China's three famous brocades, together with Nanjing Yun brocade and Sichuan Shu brocade. Suzhou's brocade production can be traced back to the Five Dynasties. It prospered in the Song dynasty. After the government moved the capital southward, the country's political and cultural centre moved to the Yangtze River area. To cope with the special need of artists, a type of very thin brocade for decorating paintings emerged in Suzhou. These brocades and paintings have been preserved. Whenever people talked about brocade, they mentioned the Song dynasty, and thus Song brocade got its name and has been well-known ever since. • Cuisine: Suzhou Cuisine (苏帮菜), which is part of the Jiangsu cuisine, including Yangcheng Lake large crab, Squirrel fish, etc. • Handicrafts: Suzhou embroidery, fans, Chinese musical instruments, scroll mounting, lanterns, mahogany furniture, jade carving, silk tapestry, traditional painting pigments of Jiangenxutang Studio, the New Year's wood-block prints of Taohuawu Studio. • Paintings • Calligraphic art • Suzhou Silk Hand Embroidery Art • Suzhou is the original place of "Jasmine", a song sung by Chinese singers or actresses thousands of times on the occasions of almost every important meetings or celebrations. Jasmine is the symbol of Suzhou as well as Tai Hu Lake. • Suzhou Gardens: Gardens in Suzhou have an ancient history. The first garden in Suzhou belonged to the emperor of Wu State in Spring and Autumn Period (600 BC). More than 200 gardens existed in Suzhou between the 16th and 18th centuries. Gardens in Suzhou were built according to the style of Chinese Paintings. Every view in a garden can be seen as a piece of Chinese Painting and the whole garden is a huge piece of Chinese Paintings. At present, the Humble Administrator's Garden, built in 16th, is the largest private garden in Suzhou. It belonged to by Wang Xianchen, an imperial censor. • Suzhou embroidery together with embroidery of Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong are called as the "Four Famous Embroideries". Suzhou tapestry method is done in fine silks and gold thread. Other art forms found in this area are sculpture, Song brocade, jade and rosewood carving. • The Suzhou Museum has a rich collection of relics from many eras. The collection includes revolutionary records, stele carving, folk customs, drama and verse, Suzhou embroidery, silk cloth, gardens, coins and Buddhist artifacts. • Wedding gowns.

Education: University • Changshu Institute of Technology • Duke Kunshan University • KEDGE Business School • Jiangnan Social University • Jiangsu University Zhangjiagang Campus • Renmin University of China Suzhou Campus • Skema Business School – Chinese campus of the French business school • Soochow University • Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture • Suzhou University of Science and Technology • Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Under construction • Nanjing University Suzhou Campus • Northwestern Polytechnical University Taicang Campus

High schools • Changshu High School • Dulwich College Suzhou • Dulwich International High School Suzhou • Kunshan Senior High School • SIP Experimental Middle School  • Suzhou Experimental High School • Suzhou High School • Suzhou Singapore International School • Suzhou No.1 High School  • Suzhou No.10 High School • Suzhou Wuxian High School (苏州吴县中学) • Taicang Senior High School • Zhenze Middle School • Jiangsu Province Mudu senior High School

Postgraduate institutions • Southeast University-Monash University Joint Graduate School • Suzhou Dushu Lake Higher Education Town (National University of Singapore and Fudan Joint Graduate School, Nanjing University Graduate School, etc.)

Others • Japanese School of Suzhou • Overseas Chinese Academy Chiway Suzhou (苏州工业园区海归人才子女学校).