China’s Numerous “Ancient Cities and Towns” Become Ghost Towns in a Swarm of Antique Projects

“Epoch Times, March 3, 2025” China’s “Ancient City and Town” projects have been facing difficulties one after another. The Da Yong Ancient City in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, with a total investment of about 2.5 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), has accumulated over 500 million yuan in losses over the past three years and has entered the stage of bankruptcy and reorganization. The state-run media in China reported that many imitation ancient projects across the country have turned into abandoned projects or ended up as “ghost cities.” The Chinese Communist Party government’s promotion of imitation ancient projects in the early years has once again attracted attention.

According to the state-run media Worker’s Daily report on March 2, the Da Yong Ancient City in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, has recently attracted public attention. Data shows that this project has a total investment of about 2.5 billion yuan, but has accumulated over 500 million yuan in losses over more than three years of operation. In the first half of last year, only about 2,300 people purchased tickets, with an average daily ticket purchase of fewer than 20 people. Netizens have given comments such as “desolate,” “quiet,” and “more shops than visitors”.

Some visitors expressed, “All kinds of ancient towns are like copy and paste, with a similarity rate of up to 99%.”

The “2024 China Ancient Town Tourism Development Report” released by the China Tourism Research Institute shows that 51.3% of the respondents believe that there are some similarities between ancient towns, and 38.5% of the respondents feel that ancient towns are all very similar, lacking uniqueness.

The aforementioned official media article pointed out that many of these projects, launched with great fanfare, have become abandoned projects, or due to severe homogenization and poor operational management, have turned into “ghost towns” after completion.

According to the Chinese media “36Kr,” Zhangjiajie, known as the “top-tier” tourist destination in China and a filming location for the movie “Avatar,” is now on the brink of bankruptcy and reorganization.

It was reported that on December 16, 2024, the Zhangjiajie Tourism Group Co., Ltd., which owns the Zhangjiajie scenic area, announced its planned restructuring, showing that the company had incurred losses of seven billion yuan over the past four years, with a loss of 61.16 million yuan in the first half of 2024. Among them, the Da Yong Ancient City under its umbrella incurred a loss of 64.38 million yuan. This ancient city, which cost 2.4 billion yuan to build and had high expectations, is now mired in massive losses and has almost become a ghost city.

Situated in the central area of Zhangjiajie city, the Da Yong Ancient City is the largest urban tourism and cultural project in Zhangjiajie in terms of single investment, starting construction in June 2016 and completing it in six years. However, by September 2024, the Zhangjiajie Dayong Ancient City Development Co., Ltd. was ordered by the court to enter into reorganization proceedings.

Reportedly, since the trial operation began in 2021, the Da Yong Ancient City has been losing money year after year, with losses amounting to 547 million yuan in the past three and a half years. The meager annual revenue of the Da Yong Ancient City mainly comes from the parking lot. People would rather park their cars than spend more time in the ancient city.

The fate of Da Yong Ancient City reflects the situation of numerous artificial ancient cities and towns across the country.

In 2012, Lin Peng, director of the Chinese Ancient City and Cultural Research Institute, stated that there were more than 2,800 developed or developing ancient cities and towns in China at that time. In 2016, when the construction of Da Yong Ancient City began, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and two other departments specifically issued documents to “encourage and guide” from a policy level, leading to a wave of building characteristic small towns nationwide.

Like Da Yong Ancient City, many ancient cities and towns are facing operational difficulties, with some even having closed down. For example, the Bai Lu Yuan Folk Culture Village in Lantian, Shaanxi, was demolished after only four years of operation due to sparse visitor flow; Longtan Water Town in Chengdu is “deserted,” and nearby villagers even started farming on vacant land.

The Jinan Song Feng Ancient City, with an investment of 4 billion yuan and built to national 5A-level scenic area construction standards, has been under construction since 2019 and was listed as a “star project” in Shandong Province in 2020. According to the plan, the project was supposed to receive over 5 million visitors annually two years after completion. However, after more than five years, the first phase of the project has not yet been completed, and the park is overgrown with weeds and barren.

Liu Simin, a director of the Beijing Tourism Association, told the Chinese media that after the official promotion of building characteristic small towns in various regions in 2016, some areas followed suit, and many inexperienced real estate developers also wanted to get a piece of the pie. According to reports, by 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission eliminated and rectified 419 “problematic small towns” nationwide, many of which were imitation ancient projects.