Twenty-Eight Villages Ancient Town

　　Twenty-Eight Villages Ancient Town is a national-level historical and cultural town and a hometown of Chinese folk art. Historically, it was the first settlement on the route from Zhejiang to Fujian, often referred to as the “Key to Maple Stream.” With over a thousand years of history, it is a national AAAA-level scenic area.

　　Twenty-Eight Villages Ancient Town has a style distinctly different from the water towns of the Jiangnan region, even carrying an air of mystery. Over 1,300 years ago, Huang Chao marched southward and carved out the Xianxia Ancient Path through the rugged mountains between Zhejiang and Fujian. Since then, surrounded by towering peaks and fortified passes, Twenty-Eight Villages became a military encampment and a strategic stronghold throughout the dynasties. By the Ming Dynasty, due to the court's strict maritime prohibition policies that closed coastal ports in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to foreign trade, the Xianxia Ancient Path—which initially served mainly military purposes—gradually transformed into a vital trade route. Textiles and daily goods from Jiangsu and Zhejiang were shipped up the Qiantang River to the Qinghu Wharf in Jiangshan, then transported overland by porters carrying loads on shoulder poles to Fujian and Jiangxi. Local specialties from Fujian and Jiangxi also traveled along this ancient path to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, some even reaching Beijing via the Grand Canal. As the first stop along this trade route and a key transportation hub, Twenty-Eight Villages quickly flourished into the most bustling commercial center on the borders of three provinces. At its peak, the cobblestone streets were lined with shops, restaurants, and inns. Porters traveled by day, merchants stayed overnight, and the town bustled with activity, thriving in wealth and liveliness for centuries.

　　The ancient town has preserved a remarkably intact and large collection of historic residential architecture. Sixty-three representative dwellings and eleven public buildings are spread along the Maple Stream Valley, forming an approximately two-kilometer-long Ming and Qing dynasty old street. The architectural styles integrate elements from Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Anhui, and experts have praised it as “rare nationwide and foremost in Zhejiang Province,” calling it an authentic living museum of ancient architecture. Moreover, though the town has only a population of a few thousand, it is home to residents bearing 142 different family surnames and speaking 13 distinct dialects—a phenomenon experts describe as the “Town of a Hundred Surnames, Kingdom of Dialects.” The locals still maintain unique traditional folk arts passed down through generations, including mountain songs, folk dances, dry-land boat performances, lantern festivities, paper-cutting, puppetry, stilt-walking, and stone sliding. Various external cultures converged and collided here, giving rise to a unique “cultural enclave” phenomenon. Twenty-Eight Villages is a living historical and cultural border town. The writer Wang Zhecheng described it as “a dream lost deep in the mountains.”