A City Built on Han Dynasty Grandeur and Industrial Reinvention
Xuzhou sits at the crossroads where four provinces meet—Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui—a geography that has made it a strategic hub for millennia. Once the capital of Western Chu and the ancestral home of the Han dynasty imperial family, it later became a coal-mining powerhouse before transforming itself into a center for heavy machinery and new energy production. What draws you here now is the chance to walk through layers of Chinese history—from imperial tombs to Buddhist temples to the raw street life of a working city—and to see how a place reshapes itself without erasing what came before.
What to See: Han Tombs and the Terracotta Warriors You've Never Heard Of
The Guishan Han Dynasty Tombs and the Mausoleum of the Chu Prince are the spine of Xuzhou's archaeological claim. At Guishan, you stand before the burial chambers of Liu Zhu, the sixth ruler of ancient Chu, and his wife—real tombs that contain real remains from the Han period. The Mausoleum of the Chu Prince is believed to hold Liu Wu, the third prince of Chu, and features three pavilions of three-foot-tall terracotta warriors in various states of excavation. This is Xuzhou's equivalent to Xi'an's famous army, except most people in the city itself barely know it exists. You'll walk through these sites with almost no crowds, studying the craftsmanship of figures buried more than two thousand years ago.
The Xuzhou Museum on Heping Road covers the broader sweep of the region's history and culture; entry is free. For a different kind of historical walk, visit the Xuzhou Folk Museum on Hubu Hill, which occupies Ming and Qing dynasty courtyard houses—the Zhai Family Compound and the Yu Family Compound—displaying daily life from centuries past, with other restored historic houses nearby.
Walking the City's Neighborhoods: New and Old Xuzhou
Spend time in the old downtown neighborhoods where the real texture of the city emerges. Narrow alleys connect hundred-year-old wet markets to temporary encampments of migrant workers and traveling farmers. You'll find one-room restaurants without menus, where staff simply tell you what they have that day, or you can look at other tables and point. There are dog-meat butchers, public toilets, and arcades housed in scavenged brick structures with corrugated tin roofs. This is working Xuzhou, unpolished and alive.
Then walk along the New Yellow River, a diverted portion of the river created by floods in 1938 when Nationalist forces bombed dykes to slow the Japanese invasion. Along its banks you can have your fortune told, buy medications that would be prescription-only in Western countries, purchase raw tobacco, eat well, and listen to small traveling musicians playing traditional instruments. After that, stroll into the downtown proper—which looks like every other Chinese city of this size, with its KFC, department stores, and massive empty squares—and understand the contrast Xuzhou embodies.
Military History and Lakes: The Huaihai Campaign and Urban Green Space
The Huaihai Campaign Memorial Museum sits in a large park in Quanshan District and documents one of the major military campaigns of the Chinese Civil War. The museum is free and open Tuesday through Sunday. For a different kind of space, visit Yunlong Lake in the city's southwest, a large scenic lake ringed by walking paths, with the Xuzhou Aquarium on Huxin Island at its center—one of Asia's largest aquariums, containing hundreds of aquatic species. The Xuzhou Botanical Gardens, established in 2012 on the grounds of what was once a nursery, spread across 400,000 square meters with hundreds of plant species and manmade streams and waterfalls.
Food: Diguo Ji, Sha Tang, and Dog Meat Bread
Diguo ji is the signature dish: chicken cooked with chilies and bread in a cauldron, a cooking method that originated with fishermen of Weishan Lake who would boil fish in a cauldron and place dough around its rim. The half-singed bread is essential—you tear it apart and dip it into the broth. You can find this in most local restaurants.
Sha tang is a thick, mucilaginous soup full of eel, chicken meat, beans, and black pepper. Local legend holds that when an emperor tasted it and asked its name, the chef misheard him asking "What? soup," and the name stuck. Ma Shi Jie on Jie Fang Lu is recognized as the city's best sha tang establishment; there's also a branch on Heping Lu near the church, though opinion holds the original is superior. Outside the restaurant, you buy dipping items—fried dumplings, salty fried dough—and watch elderly men who have eaten breakfast here for fifty years, many bringing their own bowls and spoons.
Dog meat tacos appear on Heqing Lu between Pengcheng Lu and Jie Fang Lu. Look for the alleys leading off Heqing Lu, specifically the one closest to Pengcheng Lu; you'll recognize it by skinned dog carcasses hung on the corner, with the last fur cleaned away by propane torch. The bread is cooked in a stone oven, slightly salty and sweet, coated in sesame seeds. The dog meat is tender, stringy, and flavorful, torn from bones in a metal tray.
Getting Oriented: Ximatai and Hubu Hill
Ximatai, meaning "horse-training terrace," sits atop Hubu Hill in Yunlong District and was built centuries ago, probably during the Ming dynasty, to commemorate the warlord Xiang Yu, who is believed to have supervised horsemanship training there during the third century BCE. Most of what stands today is a modern reconstruction from the 1980s, but the hilltop affords a fine view of the surrounding area. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, local dignitaries and wealthy businessmen built residences here. The area now hosts several nightlife venues and bars clustered around a pedestrian street near the hill.
Xuzhou rewards the traveler who arrives without fixed expectations—not as a destination of one singular draw, but as a place where ancient imperial tombs stand quietly in public parks, where street food tells the story of regional innovation, and where neighborhoods reveal the layered life of a Chinese industrial city in transformation. The museums and archaeological sites anchor your visit, but the texture comes from walking, eating, and sitting by the New Yellow River listening to musicians play centuries-old instruments in a city that has seen empires rise and fall.