The Pingyao Ancient City was built in the year of Hongwu 3nd (1370 AD), Ming Dynasty with a girth of 6.4km as the early built and the largest scale ancient cities well preserved in Shanxi Province.

Though it had been repaired in Ming and Qing dynasty, it has kept the original look of the early Ming dynasty. The whole city takes a quadrate shape with walls of 12 meters high.

The city walls were built by laying rocky bricks and have a moat of 4 meters deep and 4 meters wide surrounding them to strengthen the defense of the city. It is said that there are 3000 battlements and 72 watchtowers on the top of the walls according to the number of disciples and elitist students of Confucius.