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Industrial centre · Scenic area · Historic city · Jiangsu

Wuxi

无锡 (Wúxī)

Lake Tai city of silk, industry and clay figures

Wuxi is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu on the northern shore of Lake Tai and the Grand Canal. A cradle of the ancient state of Wu and of China's early modern industry, it is known for Lake Tai scenery, the Huishan clay figures, Yixing teapots and a sweet local cuisine, and remains a major manufacturing centre.

ProvinceJiangsu

Key facts

Province
Jiangsu
Administrative level
Prefecture-level city
Area
about 4,627 km²[1]
Resident population
7.46 million(as of 2020 census)[2]
Lake
Northern shore of Lake Tai

Overview

Wuxi lies between Lake Tai and the Yangtze, on the Grand Canal between Changzhou and Suzhou. Tradition places the first capital of the state of Wu here, founded by Taibo of the Zhou royal house. The folk explanation of the name — “without tin”, after the tin mines of Xishan were exhausted — is widely told but uncertain.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Wuxi's merchant families, notably the Rong family, built some of China's first modern flour and cotton mills, and the city became a pioneer of the township enterprises of the 1980s. Its county-level city of Yixing is the home of zisha teapots.

Names and nicknames

  • 梁溪 (Liángxī)

    After the Liang Stream, which flows through the city from Lake Tai; also the name of the central district.

  • 小上海 (Xiǎo Shànghǎi)

    “little Shanghai”

    Name earned in the early twentieth century for the city's flour, silk and cotton mills.

History

According to tradition, Taibo, eldest son of the Zhou patriarch, settled at Meili in Wuxi around the twelfth century BCE and founded Wu. The city grew as a rice market and canal port; the Donglin Academy, revived here in 1604, became the centre of a famous political movement against court eunuchs in the late Ming. From the 1890s industrialists turned Wuxi into a textile and flour-milling centre.

  1. c. 12th century BCE

    Taibo founds Wu (traditional)

    The Taibo Temple at Meili honours the legendary founder of the state of Wu.

  2. 1604

    Donglin Academy revived

    Gu Xiancheng and fellow scholars made it the centre of a reformist faction that opposed the eunuch Wei Zhongxian.

  3. 1900s

    Rong family mills

    Rong Zongjing and Rong Desheng founded flour and cotton businesses that grew into one of China's largest industrial groups.

  4. 1980s

    Township enterprises

    Rural factories in Wuxi's villages became a model of Chinese rural industrialisation.

Landmarks

  1. Nature

    Turtle Head Isle

    鼋头渚 (Yuántóu Zhǔ)

    Peninsula on Lake Tai with gardens and views over the lake, known for cherry blossom in spring.

  2. Park or garden

    Jichang Garden

    寄畅园 (Jìchàng Yuán)

    Ming garden at the foot of Huishan that borrows the view of Xishan's pagoda; the Qianlong Emperor copied it in the Summer Palace.

  3. Historic site

    Huishan Ancient Town

    惠山古镇 (Huìshān Gǔzhèn)

    Cluster of more than a hundred ancestral temples at the foot of Huishan, and the Second Spring Under Heaven.

  4. Historic site

    Donglin Academy

    东林书院 (Dōnglín Shūyuàn)

    The late-Ming academy with its couplet on hearing wind, rain and the sound of reading.

  5. Temple or shrine

    Lingshan Grand Buddha

    灵山大佛 (Língshān Dàfó)

    Bronze standing Buddha completed in 1997 on the shore of Lake Tai, with the Brahma Palace beside it.

Neighbourhoods

  • Qingming Bridge

    清名桥 (Qīngmíng Qiáo)

    Historic stretch of the Grand Canal with waterside houses and old kilns.

  • Dangkou

    荡口古镇 (Dàngkǒu Gǔzhèn)

    Water town in the east, home of the Hua family charitable estate.

Food

  • Wuxi spare ribs

    无锡酱排骨 (Wúxī jiàng páigǔ)

    Pork ribs slow-braised in soy sauce and sugar until dark and tender.

  • Three whites of Lake Tai

    太湖三白 (Tài Hú sān bái)

    White fish, whitebait and white shrimp from the lake.

  • Wuxi soup buns

    小笼馒头 (xiǎolóng mántou)

    Soup dumplings with a sweeter filling than Shanghai's.

  • Yangshan peaches

    阳山水蜜桃 (Yángshān shuǐmìtáo)

    Juicy white peaches from the Yangshan area, in season in midsummer.

Culture

Wuxi's culture is that of the Taihu region: Xi opera sung in the Wu dialect, the painted Huishan clay figures, silk and the teapots of Yixing. Its most famous musical work, the erhu piece “The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring” (二泉映月), was composed by the blind street musician Hua Yanjun (Abing) and named after Huishan's spring.

Getting around

  • Wuxi has a metro network linking the centre with the high-speed stations, the airport and the lake shore.
  • Wuxi and Wuxi East stations are on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed lines; Sunan Shuofang International Airport serves Wuxi and Suzhou.

Day trips

  • Yixing

    宜兴 (Yíxīng)

    County-level city famous for zisha teapots, with the Dingshu pottery town, karst caves and bamboo forests.

  • Hongshan site

    鸿山遗址 (Hóngshān yízhǐ)

    Museum of noble tombs of the Yue state near Meili.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

  1. Wuxi Municipal People's Government — Wuxi Municipal People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
  2. Seventh National Population Census communiqués — National Bureau of Statistics of China (retrieved 27 September 2026)
  3. Wuxi — Encyclopaedia Britannica (retrieved 27 September 2026)

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