CHAOSHAN · FOLKWAYS · DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE BASE

Chaoshan Wiki

Chaoshan in three cities: festivals, rites, beliefs, crafts and food, plus the sights, the routes and where to eat and stay. Inside an entry the three layers stay apart: which line is from the gazetteer, which is a county variant, which from fieldwork.

Look up an entry Plan a trip See the 38 sights Read customs and crafts

Three cities, take one first

The Chaoshan region is three cities: Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang. Customs share an origin, practice differs by county, and so do the sights — Chaozhou in its old city, Shantou in the old town and on the islands, Jieyang in the urban district and in the hills.

ChaozhouOld city, bridges, wood carvingNine nationally protected sites inside the city wall in half a day; the farthest, Daoyun Lou, is in Sanrao, Raoping.ShantouArcades, overseas-Chinese houses, islandsTwo hours for the Xiaogongyuan port area; a full day for Nan ao Island. Plan them separately.JieyangConfucian temple, City God temple, mountain and sea foodPoints in the urban district are close together; Huangqi Shan and Huangmanzhai Falls each take another day.

Six sections

TravelHalf a day to five days, laid out by city and by time available. Also transport, where to stay, seasons, six cross-city interest routes, and a pre-departure check.14 pieces DestinationsThirty-eight places in the three cities, grouped by city and by kind; the nineteen protected sites have their own list.45 pieces FoodTeochew cooking, kueh (rice cakes), Gongfucha, and how Shantou eats. Methods and county differences; no rankings, no restaurant recommendations.5 pieces History and cultureAdministration and migration, remittance letters and houses; nine entries on the ritual year, four on rites; heritage and crafts; dialect and performance.52 pieces WikiSix people, terms and glossaries, historical sources, and three pages meant for machines to read.13 pieces ExploreSearch, the entry index, and an overview of sections. If you do not know where to start, start here.4 pieces

Four to read first

All four rest on sources, and all four have points of dispute. Chaoxiu and Yingge were both in the first national list of intangible heritage in 2006; the opening hours of Guangji Bridge change with the water level; the Gongfucha entry describes the procedure, not the price of tea.

ChaoxiuGold-thread work and raised padding are what identify it; the stitches are described more than the patterns.YinggeTwo lines, Chaoyang and Puning, with different stick work and face paint; Jiazi Yingge entered the third national list in 2011.Guangji BridgeBeam, pontoon and arch on one bridge; the eighteen pontoon boats in the middle can be opened and closed.Gongfucha ritesThree cups, one brewing, three rounds; the serving order belongs to etiquette, not to performance.

How much the site holds now

346Chinese pages

38sights

19protected sites

13Heritage and crafts

Figures as of 3 November 2026. Chinese and traditional Chinese 346 pages each, now level. The English, Japanese and Korean branches add 135 pages, 45 each, and cover only part of the site.

Recently added

Sight index: thirty-eight places in three cities— thirteen in Chaozhou, thirteen in Shantou, twelve in Jieyang. Each gives what to look at, tips, and the best time of day.
Travel guide and route planning— the master index: entry points to the three cities, two-, three- and five-day routes, routes by interest, how to get there and where to stay.
Teochew dialect glossary— thirty entries, transcribed only from examples already on the site.
Jieyang old city: Jinxian Gate, the Confucian temple and Xima Road— two walks, half a day and a full day, with opening hours for four protected sites.
What to eat in Shantou: one day from breakfast to supper— three districts, six dishes, four streets, across five meals.
God-parade calendar— twenty processions in Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang from the first lunar month to the second, with lunar dates, Gregorian conversion, date status and travel checks.
Heritage list— batch, year, number, project name, category and applicant region recorded item by item; only published documents.

About this site

Chaoshanwiki is a knowledge base that sets out Chaoshan culture clearly. These records were scattered across the prefectural gazetteer and the county gazetteers, hard for ordinary readers and overseas Chaoshan families to look up; most introductions also lump the seven counties together, flattening the differences between them. What this site does is to keep the records county by county and source by source.

Coverage is the three cities as they stand — Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang — written county by county. Dabu and Fengshun were in the same prefecture in Qing times (nine counties after 1738) and are now part of Meizhou; they are cited only as comparisons inside the old prefecture.

Entries are published after editorial review. Submissions and suggestions are welcome: material, corrections, photograph licences and leads. See About this site, Licensing terms: Copyright and licence.

Academic stance　The 24 solar terms, the sexagenary cycle and the 28 lunar mansions are recorded here only as historical calendrical and folk terms. This site offers no date selection, divination or astrology, and does not promote fortune telling. Solar-term and lunar-phase figures come from the open datasets of the Kuang Chujia calendar and archaeoastronomy project.

Text CC BY-SA 4.0; images keep their copyright, commercial use by separate licence; data CC BY 4.0.
Last revised: 3 November 2026