Located 38 kilometers from Taiyuan's city center, the Chang Family Compound is the private mansion of the Chang family, one of several wealthy merchant clans that lived in Shanxi during China's Ming and Qing dynasties. Visitors enter the vast compound by walking across a stone arch bridge and passing through a tall gateway onto a 650-meter-long street paved with flagstones stretching from east to west. Covering a total area of more than 600,000 square meters, the compound has over 4,000 rooms, over 50 buildings and 13 gardens. Every courtyard in the compound contains a variety of brick, wood and stone sculptures that are considered some of the most elaborate examples of Qing Dynasty decorative architectural features.[China.org.cn/VCG]

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