Taishan Park

Taishan Park

Taishan Park is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

Taishan Park is located in the main urban area of Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province. The park has no walls and is open to the public free of charge. It is divided into four areas: the cultural landscape zone, the potted plant viewing area, the street green space recreational area, and the waterfront leisure area. A lake surrounding the park is called Little West Lake. The water in the lake is exceptionally clear, with lush green trees on the mountains reflected in the water, creating beautiful mirrored images that spark endless imagination. There are winding corridors by the lake, a long wooden boardwalk built along the stone dam, and a waterside platform extending into the lake, offering visitors a pure and delightful experience, living up to its reputation as a water garden. Around Little West Lake are fishing platforms, a yacht dock, an artificial hill in the lake, a lakeside Zen temple, and a Moon-Viewing Pavilion. A wide flagstone path connects various attractions such as the Zhushi Archway, Grandma’s Temple, Chunyu Cottage, and the Broken Locust Tree Pavilion. With its water garden, open-air courtyard, Dawn Square, and island in the lake, Taishan Park blends modern plaza design with classical architecture. It can accommodate over ten thousand people for leisure and recreation, making it a wonderful place for Taizhou residents to stay fit and nourish their minds.

Since the Song Dynasty, historical sites in Taizhou such as Yuedun (Taishan), Little West Lake, and the Lakeside Zen Temple have been collectively referred to as Taishan Park since July 1951, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. That year, the Taizhou Municipal People’s Government decided to use Yuedun as the main attraction and began preparations to build this large-scale public park.

Since then, Taishan Park has become a gathering place for cultural relics from various dynasties in Taizhou. Structures such as the Ming Dynasty Zhushi Archway, the second hall of the Ming Dynasty Taishan Palace (Grandma’s Temple), and the Qing Dynasty Guangxiao Temple Precept Platform (hall) were relocated here successively. Stone carvings from the spirit way of the Ming Dynasty Chu?k Tomb and ancient Taizhou potted plants have also been displayed in the park ever since.

Many Ming and Qing dynasty buildings in the park were relocated from the urban area. The Wangyue Tower was originally reconstructed using wood from the Guangxiao Temple Precept Platform hall. The three northern rooms of the Osmanthus Garden, dating back to the Ming Dynasty, came from the Wang Family Residence, a provincial-level protected site at Dalinqiao. The office building of the park management office was originally a building of a Qing Dynasty money shop next to the Dahua Cinema at the North Gate. A row of buildings in the East Garden was once the office space of the Qigan Lane Shangba Police Station in the early years after liberation, featuring a set of elegant and classic redwood furniture that is considered unique in Taizhou. As for the hall in the northern part of the park, it is the second hall of the Ming Dynasty Taishan Palace.

With a history of a thousand years, Taishan Park tells the long history of Taizhou through the solemnity of Taishan, the beauty of Little West Lake, the elegance of the potted plant garden, and the brilliance of numerous cultural relics. It showcases the vitality and charm of the ancient city and reflects the inheritance of the historical culture of this renowned town. As Taizhou strides toward the future with a new spirit of openness, we should preserve the cultural essence of Taishan Park and retain the roots of humanistic Taizhou.