Yīxiàn

Yi County lies among the mountains of Huizhou, where villages of white walls and dark tiled roofs stand beside streams and fields. At Hongcun, the Wang lineage built a remarkable network of channels and ponds; at Xidi, houses and ancestral halls preserve the character of the region's merchant villages.

In the Yongle reign of the early Ming, Hongcun's residents diverted water through winding channels into a crescent-shaped pond at the village centre. The water served households and helped guard against fire. As the village grew, its people dug a larger South Lake in 1607. Together, the channels and ponds gave the settlement a distinctive plan, linking everyday life to a carefully arranged landscape of water.