Located in the south area of Yangtze River in Anhui province, ancient villages in southern Anhui have private homes, ancestral temples, academies, memorial archways, pagodas, verandas, etc. That were built before the end of Qing Dynasty and are of great value in research fields of history, art and science. The architecture there has strong Huizhou characteristics (another name for Anhui). Xidi and Hongcun are the most typical of Ancient Villages of Southern Anhui, and both of them were simultaneously added to the world cultural heritage list by UNESCO in November, 2000.

Hongcun Village
Hongcun village is located in Yixian county, Huangshan city, Anhui province. Since it is comparatively high in elevation, it is always bathed in colorful clouds and rays of sunshine. It looks very much like a roll of landscape painting - alternatively looming between heavy color, and bold splash-inked outline. So it is praised as the "village in a traditional Chinese painting".

Ancient residents of Hongcun were pioneers of bionics. They were the first to have planned and built the cor-shaped village and artificial river system. This design is thought to be a wonder in the architectural history and a miracle in China.

Now there are over 140 Ming and Qing dwelling houses that have been well preserved in the village. The famous scenic spots are Chengzhi Hall, Nanhu Academy and so on.

Chengzhi Hall
Chengzhi Hall has the reputation of the "Palace Museum of Fold Style". It is a brick-wood building first built by a salt merchant in Qing Dynasty, with an area of over 2,000 square m. Exquisitely built, it stands in all its imposing glory. There are complicated wood carvings depicting many characters on the crossheams of the main hall, on the top of the columns, on flower-carven doors and on the window frames. So Chengzhi Hall is also called the "museum of wood carvings of Anhui style".

Xidi Village
Xidi village is located in Yixian county, Huangshan city, Anhui province. The whole village looks very similar to a boat. In the village of over 300 families, there re 122 ancient dwelling houses kept intact. It is called the "epitome of Chinese traditional culture", and "Chinese museum of dwelling houses of Ming and Qing Dynasties".

All the streets and lanes here are paved with stone slabs producted in Yixian county. The old buildings are mainly built by wooden structure, maintained by brick walls. Carvings on wood, marble and brick of the buildings vary in shape and color. There are over 20 scenic spots open to public, such as Lingyun Tower and Dafudi Pavilion.

Dafudi Pavilion
Dafudi Pavilion is a pavilion overlooking the street. It was built for a better view of local scenery. On the pavilion hangs a horizontal inscribed board with the six characters "Tao Hua Yuan Li Ren Jia" - means of people living in the Land of Peach Blossoms, a fictitious land of peace away from the turmoil of the world. People usually think that the Dafudi Pavilion is the place where a young unmarried lady choose her husband by throwing a ball made of rolled colored silk, as is shown in some ancient costume in today's TV plays. Now it has become a venue for carrying out this type of folk cativity in Xidi Village.