Tongli has been a town since the Song dynasty, so roughly a thousand years. Fifteen waterways cut it into seven islands, joined by forty-nine old stone bridges, and five lakes ring the whole thing. Thirty-eight of its courtyard houses are Ming or Qing.
It sits in Wujiang District, about eighteen kilometres from the old city of Suzhou and an hour and a half by car from central Shanghai. Most people come for half a day. The town rewards longer, and the reason is the garden.
What the town actually is
Every house in Tongli sits on water. The clearest thing to look for is the stone steps running down from the back doors into the canal. That was the loading dock, and the family boat was the family car.
Look at the water level against the stone while you are on a bridge. It sits barely below the doorsteps. These towns were built to sit in the water rather than above it.
The old name was Fu Tu, rich earth. It was changed because it sounded like boasting. Being awkward to reach made the town safe, which is exactly what a retired official from Suzhou wanted, and it also kept the place poor enough to come through the twentieth century without being rebuilt.
The Three Bridges
Three stone bridges stand within about fifty metres of each other, over the meeting of three canals: Taiping, Jili and Changqing — peace, luck and celebration. Taiping and Jili are Ming and Qing in their present form; Changqing is the oldest of the three in origin.
Local people walk all three in order, at a wedding, at a sixtieth birthday, and at a baby's first month. Visitors are welcome to do it. There is one rule, which is that you do not walk backwards.
From the middle bridge you can see the other two without turning your head far. Three bridges this close together, over three joining waterways, is not something the other towns in this region have.
The Retreat and Reflection Garden
The Retreat and Reflection Garden is UNESCO World Heritage, and it is the only World Heritage garden outside the city of Suzhou itself. It is inside the town, and it is the one thing here we would tell you not to skip.
It is covered by the town's combined ticket. People regularly buy a second ticket for it at the gate because they assume it is separate. It is not, and you do not need one.
Allow about two and a half hours if you want to see it properly rather than walk through it.
The houses worth going inside
Chongben Hall dates from 1912, the first year of the Republic, when a local man rebuilt part of an older Gu family house. It carries over a hundred carved wood panels plus brick carving above the doors. Bats for luck, deer for rank, vases for peace — the house is a sentence made of puns. It is a wedding customs museum now, which suits a building where nothing is decoration only.
Jiayin Hall was built in 1922 by Liu Bingnan, who had made money in an oil mill. Look up in the main hall: the beams are shaped like a bow, which is a Ming form that a merchant of the 1920s copied to make a new house look older. Liu shared an ancestry with Liu Yazi, a founder of the Southern Society.
Gengle Hall is Ming, built by a man named Zhu Xiang who turned down a government post. It is the oldest surviving house in the town and holds its only Ming garden. The garden is small. Scale is not what makes it work.
Chen Qubing's house is plain and sits at the other end of the town's story. Chen lived from 1874 to 1933 and was one of three founders of the Southern Society in 1909 — a poetry society, which was a legal way for people who wanted the Qing gone to meet. Two years later the dynasty ended.
The Pearl Pagoda garden belonged to Chen Wangdao, a Ming censor, and was restored in the 2000s. The pingtan story attached to it is one everyone in this region knows: a poor young man is humiliated by his rich relatives, a daughter of the house hides a pearl pagoda in a box of cakes for him, he passes the examination and comes back.
Luoxingzhou, and seeing the town from the water
Luoxingzhou has had a temple on it since the Yuan dynasty, rebuilt several times since. It is the only part of Tongli you can reach only by boat.
If you have an hour spare at the end, take it. It is the one place here where you see a water town from the water, which is how the town was meant to be seen.
The main street, and what to make of it
The first hundred metres inside the gate is Ming and Qing Street. The buildings are old; the shopfronts are not, and most were restored from the 1980s onwards. It is the busiest stretch in the town and the least interesting part of it.
Every canal town in this region has a street like this, and every one of them gets judged on it. Walk through and hold your opinion until the third bridge.
Questions people ask
Is the Retreat and Reflection Garden included in the Tongli ticket?
Yes. The combined town ticket covers it along with nine other sites. Buying a separate ticket at the garden gate is a common and unnecessary mistake.
How long do you need in Tongli?
Half a day for the town itself, plus about two and a half hours if you want to do the Retreat and Reflection Garden properly.
How do you get to Tongli from Shanghai?
About an hour and a half by car. From the old city of Suzhou it is around eighteen kilometres, or forty minutes.
What are the opening hours?
08:00 to 17:15, with last entry at 17:00.
Can the Tongli ticket be used over two days?
Yes. The combined ticket can be extended to a second day by having it stamped at the ticket centre with your ID after 15:00 on the first day.
Is the night tour the same ticket?
No. The evening opening is a separate, cheaper ticket and it covers only the Retreat and Reflection Garden, not the ten sites on the day ticket.
When is Tongli quietest?
Before ten in the morning. The coach groups arrive later and the town is noticeably calmer if you are there early.
Ticket coverage and opening hours last checked 2026-09. Both change from year to year, so confirm on the day if the timing is tight.
Nearby, and worth pairing
- The Humble Administrator's GardenThe largest of the Suzhou gardens, begun in 1509, and named after a joke a demoted official made about himself.
- Jinxi Water TownA canal town twenty minutes from Zhouzhuang that almost nobody goes to, arranged around a grave in the lake it was named after for 880 years.
Plan the rest of the trip
- DecideShould you do Suzhou as a day trip from Shanghai?The train takes thirty minutes. The journey does not, and the difference is what decides whether the day works.
- DecideWhich water town near Shanghai should you go to?They are all about ninety minutes out and some are twenty minutes from each other, so distance is not the thing that decides it.
- Itinerary2 Days in SuzhouTravellers who want gardens and canals rather than skylines.
We run Tongli as the morning half of a private day with Suzhou
See the day