Recently, as suggested by a survey, the city of Chizhou, Anhui province, has selected 46 traditional villages as candidates for the national traditional villages application.

Out of the 46 ancient villages, 27 are in Dongzhi county, nine in Shitai county, five in Qingyang county, four in Guichi district and one in the Jiuhua Mountain area.

For Chizhou, which is home to many ancient villages, declaring traditional villages means a lot to cultural heritage protection, village construction, tourism promotion and economic development.

Three villages of Chizhou won the title of 'National Traditional Village' in 2012.

By Guo Yi

Edited by Michael Thai, Huang Pei