1997, Pingyao, a small town in central Shanxi Province was included to the World Heritage List by UNESCO. UNESCO says the city is an historical town that has been kept most intact. It has unveiled a complete picture on the development process of China's cultural, economic, social and religious life over the past several hundred years.

Pingyao's history goes back to the 9th century BC, when it was first built during the Western Zhou Dynasty. The whole town covers only an area of 2.25 square kilometers. Its city wall, streets and lanes, residential houses, stores and temples are all kept intact. Until this very day, the town looks much the same as when it was the county seat of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It has been seen as a museum of the architectural styles of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Pingyao city wall started as a stretch of dirt walls some 2800 years ago. It has been reinforced into a brick and stone wall by the year 1370 during the Ming dynasty. It has ever since been well preserved that way even to this day.

The city wall makes up an unbroken rectangle and features a rammed-earth-and-brick structure that goes 6.2 kilometers around and rises 12 meters high. The shape of the city strikes the association with that of a tortoise, a Chinese traditional symbol of longevity. Around the wall there are altogether six city gates with each in the north and south respectively while in the east and west each opened two. These resemble the limbs of the animal. The south and north gate is counted as the head and tail while the east and west as four feet. Two wells resembling the eyes of the tortoise stands just outside the south gate and the crisscrossing streets inside the city are taken as the streaks on the shell. It is reputed as the tortoise city, which in the mean time harbors a good and naive wish for the immortality of the city.

Within the city, four big streets and eight small streets radiate to join with 72 lanes. The 3,797 original quadrangle residential houses are all of the same black-colored bricks and gray-colored tiles. They were all built during the Ming and Qing dynasties and were characterized with a unique architectural styles of Northwestern China, with carvings on the eaves , bricks. Out of the total, over 400 of these courtyard houses are still intact. They constitute the most well-preserved ancient residential houses of the Han people in China.

There are also temples of varying size and old-fashioned stores, all kept in its original state, reflecting the prosperity of the city during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Pingyao boasts plenty of cultural relics. Outside the town are the Thousand-Buddha Hall of Zhengguo Temple. The Hall has a history of over 1000 years and is a wood-structured building. Within the hall, there are the color statues, which are considered the specimen of the early mud color statues in the country.

Pingyao also occupies an important position in China's contemporary financial history. In 1824, the oldest bank in China, the Ruishengchang Exchange shop was set up here. Its power culminated in the establishment of a network of private banks that operated all over the country and extended to Japan, Singapore and Russia. It was called No.1 Exchange in the country. The City claimed to have twenty-two out of the total of fifty-one banks in the country. With a network like that, Pingyao had been the financial hub of the time. One can still find the store of Ruishengchang in its original location among a host of other stores.

Today, modern buildings stands outside the ancient city walls of the Pingyao town, making a striking comparison between the ancient and the modern.