Kunshan Travel Guide

Kunshan, a scenic and beautiful city of watery villages in southeast Jiangsu Province, is like a giant pearl enchased between the jewel-like metropolises of Suzhou and Shanghai. Its tourism resources are abundant and famous around eastern China. In downtown Kunshan, a lot of ancient architectural scenes can be seen inside and outside the majestic Tinglin Park. Mount Yufeng is magnificent and you can see great views on its top. The ancient and watery Zhouzhuang Town has always been praised as the first water village in China, it has attracted millions of tourists at home and abroad, though the commercial feel is so strong nowadays. The nearby Jinxi Town is beautiful but it has a more tranquil environment because the village is much less crowded with visitors, its ancient and rustic atmosphere is still well maintained. The scenic Yangcheng Lake is famous for its Dazha (Great Gate) Crabs, and it has great landscape with quality leisure facilities. The Osmanthus Park is a tourist attraction that has many sightseeing spots, with restaurants and recreational facilities which are ideal for your holiday. Additionally, Kunqu Opera was originated in Kunshan, it is a kind of Chinese opera which has been enlisted in Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. 

Kunshan is also an economically opened-up city, today about 55 countries and regions set up over 3,500 projects which accumulated more than 20,000 million US Dollars of investment. Nowadays more than 100,000 businessmen and their family members from Taiwan have been living in Kunshan, they set up more than 1,000 companies. They have high purchasing power thus promoting the retailing, restaurant and service industries in the city. Taiwanese like eating, they invested much in local food and beverage business, so their restaurants and bars have made good examples for local-run establishments. Meanwhile local people have become much wealthier, they invested their hometown much in recent years.

Aozao Noodles have almost a hundred years of history, now a specialty in Kunshan. Aozao, means "the delicious noodles come from the profound mystery of a cooking stove" which the soup is prepared in traditional methods. Fish parts are the most basic ingredients for it, because the deliciously fresh taste comes from these. Duck is cooked in broth so the meat is quite fat but not so oily. The noodles used in the bowl are the thin Longxu (Dragon's Beard) Noodles, which should be white and delicate. Noodles must be taken out when the water begins boiling. The required cooking skills of Aozao Noodles are Five-hot and Small Soup Pot, which the bowl, soup, oil, noodles and stuffing should be very hot when to be served, and soup is generally prepared in a small pot when requested. Thus the Aozao Noodles are so delicious with strong fragrance.

Transportation

To tour Kunshan by air, the nearest international airport is Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and Shanghai Pudong International Airport, which are 45km and 92km from downtown respectively. There are bus routes from these big airports as far as Kunshan city. For urban traffic, buses and taxis are quite convenient.

People

The make up of population in Kunshan is quite different from other in Jiangsu Province and the density is less, according to an official statistics in 2004, the registered local population here is about 640,000. In addition, there are more than 100,000 people from outside Mainland China living here, most of which are from the island of Taiwan.

Geography 

Kunshan is a small city in southeast Jiangsu, it lies between Suzhou and Shanghai, which are in the west and east respectively. The area of the city is about 921 sq. km, 23 per cent of which is of water. It demonstrates that Kunshan is a typical water city. It is a city on the plain too, the elevation is roughly between 2 and 8 meters above sea level. Today Kunshan administrates ten small towns which are included the famous Zhouzhuang and the lovely Jinxi.

Climate

Kunshan belongs to northern subtropical and maritime monsoon climate, distinctive in seasons with abundant sunshine and rainfall. The mean annual temperature in the city is about 16 degrees Celsius (61'F), but as other towns in eastern China, summer is very hot, a scorching temperature had been recorded on August 1, 2003 when a strong heat wave was striking China, the mercury hit 39 degrees Celsius (102'F) !