Wan Kiln Ancient Village Scenic Area

Wan Kiln Ancient Village Scenic Area

Wan Kiln Ancient Village Scenic Area is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction.

Wan Kiln Ancient Village is one of the most typical ancient villages in southern Zhejiang where residential architecture blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape. It has been honored as a “China Historical and Cultural Famous Village,” a “Charming Folk Architecture Village of China’s Ethnic Groups,” one of the “First Batch of Traditional Chinese Villages,” a “National AAAA-level Tourist Attraction,” and “The Most Beautiful Village in Zhejiang.”

The village of Wan Kiln began to form in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties and has been well-preserved to this day. Most of its buildings, handicraft workshops, and facilities are historical originals, earning it the reputation of a “living museum of handicraft porcelain production from the Ming and Qing periods.” To this day, it still retains the form of an ancient village intact, featuring more than 300 residential houses built in the early Qing Dynasty that are highly distinctive. Among them, the Octagonal Tower and the Hanging Corner Tower are the most representative. The dragon kiln, ancient stage, and Three Officials Temple are particularly noteworthy.

It is a ceramic village where many families of different surnames live in small communities. Not only is it a renowned water town and ancient village in southern Zhejiang, but it is also a cultural heritage village, boasting abundant traditional residential architecture, porcelain workshops, and ceramic relics from the Qing Dynasty and the Republican era. With superior natural landscape resources, it fully demonstrates the exceptional skills of its ancestors in village site selection, courtyard layout, architectural construction, decorative techniques, and pottery-making. It possesses extremely valuable tangible and intangible cultural heritage resources, serving as a living textbook for studying the rural culture, vernacular architecture, and history of ceramic development in southern Zhejiang. It holds high historical, artistic, and scientific value.

Over 300 years ago, the ceramics produced here were exported as far as Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan. Today, the traditional porcelain-making techniques are still preserved. Currently, Wan Kiln Ancient Village has vigorously developed and improved numerous tourism infrastructure facilities, actively promoting and developing tourism. It has stepped out of obscurity into the public eye and is increasingly favored by tourists from all over. In 2014, it received 500,000 visitors, becoming a well-known tourist destination in southern Zhejiang.