10 Days in Jingdezhen

Named for the Jingde reign of 1004-1007, the city has fired porcelain for over 1,000 years. Taoyangli holds the Ming imperial kiln factory — serving the court until 1911 — the pits of smashed rejects, the 2020 brick-vaulted museum, and the Dragon Pearl Pavilion.

1. jingdezhen taoyangli imperial kiln

A full morning at the 5A park — Song dragon kiln, Ming gourd kiln, the Qing egg-shaped town kiln re-fired in 2009, and a porcelain-instrument show around noon. Entry about 95 yuan.

1. jingdezhen ancient kiln park

The free China Ceramics Museum holds some 50,000 pieces, Song qingbai to Qing export ware, with the deadpan arhat that went viral. After dark, Taoxichuan — a 1950s state factory reborn in 2016 — runs its bazaar under the old kiln sheds.

1. jingdezhen china ceramics museum
2. jingdezhen taoxichuan

Sanbao's five-kilometre valley holds hundreds of studios; Li Jianshen opened the first international one in a farmhouse in the 1990s. Many welcome walk-in visits, and some offer wheel time — linger over lunch at a courtyard café.

1. jingdezhen sanbao porcelain valley

Hutian fed the Song-Yuan craze for qingbai ware; a national protected site since 1982, its workings sit open-air with a folk-kiln museum. Spend the late afternoon on an easy riverside loop along the Chang, the waterway that once floated the kiln wood down to town.

1. jingdezhen hutian kiln site
2. jingdezhen changjiang riverside

Fuliang's yamen is billed as the best-preserved county government seat south of the Yangtze; its magistrates ranked fifth grade, a notch above peers, on tea taxes. Beside it stands a red-brick pagoda closing on 1,000 years old.

1. jingdezhen fuliang ancient yamen
2. jingdezhen fuliang red pagoda

About 50 km northeast, Yaoli keeps Ming-Qing Huizhou-style streets, the Cheng Clan Hall, and a 1938 New Fourth Army site; nearby Gaoling village gave the world the word kaolin. Buses and shared cars run from downtown — a full day, back by night.

1. jingdezhen yaoli ancient town

An honest greater-Jingdezhen day — Leping, the county-level city about an hour south, keeps some 400 timber opera stages, which earned it the old-stage fame of Jiangxi opera country; then the lit karst halls of Hongyan in the hills beyond. Back by evening.

1. jingdezhen leping opera stages
2. jingdezhen hongyan cave

Book a wheel class for the morning — several studios around the Sculpture Factory take drop-ins — then trawl the porcelain markets near People's Square, from a few yuan a cup to studio one-offs. Couriers foam-pack and ship crates home.

1. jingdezhen porcelain markets

An honest neighbour day — Wuyuan is a separate county to the east, 30 minutes away by HSR, famous for Huizhou villages and, in season, rapeseed terraces; it has its own page on this site. Return for the evening train, or continue onward from Wuyuan itself.

1. wuyuan