Yi County, Huangshan, Anhui, China
西递 · Xīdì
A village of the Hu clan in the hills of southern Anhui, where more than a hundred Ming and Qing houses stand along narrow stone lanes and streams. It grew rich on the trade of its merchants, who built a stone archway at the entrance, ancestral halls in the centre and, at home, carved halls hung with couplets about study and good conduct.
Photo: Zhangzhugang, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Hu of Xidi trace their line to a son of the last Tang emperor, said to have been smuggled out as a baby and raised under the name Hu; the family settled here in the 11th century. The village took its name from the streams that flow west through it, and from an old post station.
Its great age came in the Qing (1644–1912), when Xidi men traded salt and ran pawnshops across the lower Yangzi. Over a hundred houses of that time survive, many lived in today. With Hongcun, twenty minutes away, it became a World Heritage Site in 2000.
One ticket covers the village and its open houses.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Xidi village and the archway | 104 yuan |
| Jing'ai Hall, Zhuimu Hall and the open houses | Included |
At the entrance stands a stone archway of 1578, three bays wide and over twelve metres high, put up by imperial permission to honour Hu Wenguang, a local man who served as a prefectural governor. Look up at the carvings: lions, cranes, deer and the Eight Immortals, cut in grey stone.
Then walk into the lanes. High white walls with small windows hide the houses; inside, light falls into a narrow courtyard, and the halls are hung with couplets: "Study is good, trade is good, doing good is best of all; building a fortune is hard, keeping it is harder, and knowing that is not hard at all."
"Xidi and Hongcun are the same." They are two villages of different clans, with different plans: Hongcun is built round water, Xidi round lanes and halls.
"The archways praise widows." Many Huizhou archways do, but this one honours an official's career.
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
The village is a maze of lanes; allow two hours, and pick up a map at the gate.
The only archway left of the thirteen that once stood here, the others destroyed in the 20th century.
The clan's great ancestral hall, where the Hu met for rites and to settle disputes.
A hall built in memory of the family's imperial ancestor, the Tang prince.
Look for the house with a small upstairs pavilion and a doorway carved "a home in the peach-blossom land", and for horse-head gables stepping along the roofs.
A small garden house with a fine carved doorway, one of the private gardens of the village's merchants.
The archway was raised in 1578; that summer King Sebastian of Portugal died in battle in Morocco, at Alcácer Quibir.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1047 | The Hu family settles at Xidi | William of Normandy wins the battle of Val-ès-Dunes |
| 1578 | The Hu Wenguang archway is raised | King Sebastian of Portugal dies at Alcácer Quibir |
| 2000 | Listed as a World Heritage Site with Hongcun | Tate Modern opens in London |
One line to remember: a merchant clan's village, with a stone archway at the gate and wise words on every wall.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
When the Tang fell, a baby son of Emperor Zhaozong was carried out of the palace by a loyal man named Hu, who raised him as his own; the Hu of Xidi descend from him, and call themselves the "Ming-jing Hu".
Source: From the Hu family genealogy
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. Ticket price from Ctrip (2026); we did not find official 2026 opening hours, so none are given.
Checked 2026-11-12
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