Yubei Ancient Village, located 60 kilometers from the county town of Shangtang, is named after the lush Yu Mountain to the south of the village, and is a settlement of the Wang clan. With a long history, beautiful scenery, superior geography, and a unique natural environment, Yubei Ancient Village has produced many talented individuals throughout the generations. It is a distinctive, culturally rich, and well-preserved ancient village within the Nanxi River Scenic Area.
The residential architecture of Yubei Ancient Village is rich in local characteristics, with well-preserved ancient buildings and a unique overall planning concept for the village. The layout of the village is planned according to Zhou Dunyi’s ‘On the Love of the Lotus’, embodying the idea of ‘clean and undisturbed, emerging from the mud unsoiled’.
Furthermore, based on the layout of the twenty-eight constellations corresponding to heaven and earth, seven ancestral halls resembling ancient forts have been constructed around the residential buildings. These are distributed in the four directions of the village, with a protective wall and moat encircling the village, and nine gates of varying sizes opening around the village. The entire village is akin to a blooming lotus flower. Surrounded by overlapping mountains resembling lotus petals, the village gathers at the ‘heart of the lotus’.
According to the principles of yin and yang and the five elements from Daoist ‘I Ching’, the village has designated the golden mountain to the north as ‘metal’, the forest of Yubei to the south as ‘wood’, the intersecting roads to the east as ‘fire’, the fertile yellow soil of the ‘heart of the lotus’ to the west as ‘earth’, and the moat encircling the ‘heart of the lotus’ as ‘water’, forming a closed social unit and natural village.
The village is open all year round, accessible 24/7, with specific business hours subject to the daily opening status.
