Jiangnan has been such a beautiful & peotic place for over thousand years that each of the Chinese would like to live in jiangnan area, and now it becomes one of the most popular tourist destinations for foreign visitors. 

Where is Jiangnan? No body can define the Jiangnan up to now, and even can't tell where it is exactly because it is not a specific place, what's more, it is always changing according to historical geography. Now, it usually refers to Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas if people mention the Jiangnan.

Actualy, Jiangnan is in Suzhou, of course, Suzhou can represent the exquisite Jiangnan. 14 ancient water towns are jointly applying for the world cultural heritage sites, 9 of which are from Suzhou, namely Zhouzhuang, Tongli, Luzhi, Qiandeng, Shaxi, Jinxi, Zhen'ze, Li'li and FengHuang.

Zhouzhuang is an outstanding one as the China No.1 Water Town. It was built in 1086, and it is already 934 years old now. Even though it only covers 0.47 quare kilometers, over 60% old houses in the town were built in Ming or Qing Dynasty. Furthermore, local people still keep their orginal lifestyle.

The properous tourism of Zhouzhuang should attribute to famous Chinese painter, Mr. Chen Yefei. He painted one picture named the Hometown's Memory under the background of the double bridges of Zhouzhuang, which was selected as the first-day cover by the United Nations. The chairman of board of Occidental Petroleum Corp. bought it and then presented to Deng Xiaoping when he visited China in 1984, which caused mass attraction around the world.

At the first stage, Zhouzhuang was a gathering place, where local people lived. With the rapid development of tourism industry, it opened to tourists and it started to be transformed into one must-see attration when tourists came to Suzhou.

Zhouzhuang comes to the second stage, and it built more night-experienced products including homestays, international hotels and night show, etc. based on the sight-seeing products, which invite tourists to experience its local authentic life. Its slogan is one kind of lifestyle called Zhouzhuang.

In the near future, Zhouzhuang can play more influential role in Suzhou or China. On one hand, it could extend more contribution to more jobs and social & economic development.  On the other hand, it can export its successful experience to other areas, which also plan to develop tourism of ancient towns.