Ruins of the Eastern Yuan Ancient City

Ruins of the Eastern Yuan Ancient City

The ruins of the Eastern Yuan Ancient City are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The ruins of the Eastern Yuan Ancient City are located in Donggucheng Village and Xigucheng Village in the eastern part of Chang’an District, Shijiazhuang. They were discovered during the first cultural relics survey in 1956. A preliminary investigation in 2005 revealed that the ancient city site is an irregular rectangle, approximately 2,000 meters long from east to west and 1,500 meters wide from north to south, covering an area of about 3 square kilometers. The city wall foundations are about 20 meters wide, and remnants of the walls can be found on all sides. The surface exposes a large number of pottery shards as well as bricks and tile fragments. A large number of Yan-Zhao knife coins and Western Han banliang clay molds have been unearthed. The exposed cultural layers in the cliffs within the city site contain abundant fragments of pottery household items and architectural components. According to historical records such as "Records of the Grand Historian: The House of Zhao," "Records of the Grand Historian: Commentary," and "Book of Han: Treatise on Geography," the Eastern Yuan Ancient City was once an important settlement of the Zhongshan State during the Warring States period, later coming under the control of Zhao. The Qin Dynasty established the Eastern Yuan County here, and during the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, it was known as Zhending County. The seat of the Zhending Kingdom was also located here, under the jurisdiction of Changshan Commandery. In the early Jin Dynasty (265 AD), the administrative center of Changshan Commandery was moved from Yuanshi to Eastern Yuan. In the early Tang Dynasty, both the seat of Zhending County and Changshan Commandery were relocated north of the Hutuo River. From then on, the Eastern Yuan Ancient City lost its status as a political and economic hub and was gradually abandoned. As an important settlement of the Zhongshan State during the Warring States period and especially as the capital of the Han Dynasty’s Zhending Kingdom, the ruins of the Eastern Yuan Ancient City are the second most significant city site in Shijiazhuang after the LingShou Ancient City of Zhongshan. They hold great value for the study of the origins and development of Shijiazhuang.

Protected Area: Extending 10 meters north from the outer edge of the northern city wall to Donggucheng School, 5 meters west from the outer edge of the western city wall to the eastern wall of Donggucheng residential buildings, 5 meters east from the outer edge of the eastern city wall to the western wall of Nangaoying residential buildings, and 5 meters south from the outer edge of the southern city wall to the southern edge of the small path.

Construction Control Zone: Extending 100 meters east from the outer edge of the protected area to the road at the edge of Nangaoying Village, 100 meters west to the Guanyin Temple of Xigucheng and the North Trunk Canal of the Shi-Jin Irrigation System, 190 meters south to the Rose Park, and 200 meters north to the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan Expressway.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units