Huancheng Park
Ring-shaped moat park circling an ancient city wall, with willow-lined banks and water newly returned to birds and boats.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Huancheng Park in Xi'an opens with a city wall official describing the water beside you, then traces the moat's history back to the late Tang dynasty, when it was dug as a single loop around the city wall and later deepened under the Ming. You'll hear how the circle broke decades ago when a stretch near the railway station was buried under concrete and silt, and how in 1983 hundreds of thousands of residents turned out with shovels, followed in 1998 by five thousand soldiers, to try to dig it back open. One buried culvert near the station kept resisting them for years.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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