Ruins of Shuangzhou City

Ruins of Shuangzhou City

The Shuangzhou City ruins are a cultural relic protection unit of Shenyang.

The Liao Dynasty Shuangzhou City is located within the territory of Shifosi Township, Xinchengzi District, Shenyang, facing the Qixing Mountain to the northwest. From the city walls, one can see the remnants of a Liao Dynasty pagoda atop Qixing Mountain in the distance. Currently, parts of the Shuangzhou City ruins’ walls still remain, allowing visitors to discern its former grandeur. The site of the Liao Dynasty Shuangzhou City is rectangular in shape, with the city walls measuring 370 meters from east to west and 190 meters from north to south. Most of the walls are relatively continuous in height, showing the scale of the city in its prime. The walls were built using rammed earth, with layers ranging from 22 to 24 centimeters thick, and the stratification of the rammed earth is clearly visible. The existing wall foundations are about 6 meters thick, with the highest remaining section of the wall reaching approximately 4 meters, and the lowest sections still over 2 meters high. The middle section of the eastern wall has a gate that is about 15 meters wide; the southern wall features an arc-shaped earthen wall built on a slope extending outward from the gate, which is the remnant of a “barbican”; near the southwestern corner of the western wall there is another gate, roughly 14 meters wide, with a semi-circular barbican extending outward from the northern wall to encircle the western gate, though this barbican has been damaged; both the central sections of the western and northern walls have small gates about 4 meters wide. In the central-southern part of the city, there are two distinct raised platforms that are higher than the surrounding terrain, likely the sites of buildings; the four corners of the city site also feature platform remains, although no old fortifications are left.

On February 13, 1985, the site was listed as a “Cultural Relic Protection Unit of Shenyang.”