Yaoli Ancient Town

Jingdezhen made porcelain for the imperial court for centuries, and Yaoli in the hills upstream supplied it: kaolin clay, named after the nearby Gaoling hill from which the English word derives, along with pine for the kilns and the water transport to move both down to the city. The town keeps a street of Ming and Qing shopfronts along the Yaohe river, an ancestral hall and old bridges, and in the surrounding forest lie the Raonan kiln ruins and the Gaoling mining site, where terraced workings and washing channels for clay survive. Tea terraces cover the slopes, and the area is greener and cooler than the plain below.

What you actually see

• The Gaoling mining site - the terraced clay workings that named kaolin.
• The kiln ruins - Ming and Qing firing sites in the forest.
• The riverside old street - Ming and Qing shopfronts along the Yaohe.
• The tea and forest - terraced slopes above the town.

When to go

March to May and September to November; the hills are cooler than Jingdezhen in summer but humid. Autumn is clearest. Weekends bring domestic visitors from Jingdezhen.

Honest expectations

The combined ticket covers several scattered sites needing internal transport. The mining and kiln remains are archaeological rather than dramatic. Interpretation is in Chinese.

Nearby

Jingdezhen and its porcelain workshops lie southwest; Wuyuan is northeast.