As an old saying goes, gardens to the south of Yangtze River are the best in the World and Suzhou gardens are the best among them. Suzhou gardens play a unique and irreplaceable role in the history of world landscape gardening. In 1997, Suzhou Gardens was listed as World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

The earlist garden in Suzhou，which belonged to the King of Wu, can date back to the period of Spring and Autumn Warring States (770BC~221BC). Suzhou gardens experienced its golden age during the Ming Dynasty (1368~1644) and Qing Dynasty (1636~1911). It is said that during its heyday, there were about 200 gardens in Suzhou city.

Suzhou Gardens are the carrier of Chinese traditional culture and are best known for its cultural features, including unique inscribed boards, excellet couplets, exquisite engraving and poetic Garden halls’names, etc. All these stand as the proof of the creativity and wisdom of ancient Chinese. Handwritings of some ancient Chinese calligraphy celebrities, which are of high literary value, are also well-presevered in these gardens.

Suzhou Gardens fully reflect the profound importance of natural beauty in Chinese culture. The “borrowed scenery”, a technique of garden design that merges the surrounding natural scenery into the garden itself, is often used in in the art of garden construction in Suzhou. Nowadays, we still can enjoy the beauty of some famous ones, such as Zhuozheng Garden (also called Humble Administrator’s Garden), Liu Garden (also called Lingering Garden), etc.