Shanshui City

The concept of the shanshui (mountain and water) city is first proposed by Qian Xuesen, who proposed to ‘combine Chinese landscape poetry, Chinese classical garden architecture, and Chinese landscape painting to create a shanshui city’. Many interpretations of landscape cities have been presented, and they include five main ideas: (1) an emphasis on the use of natural forms of landscape in cities; (2) an emphasis on the integration of the artificial environment and the natural environment; (3) an emphasis on the integration of the cultural environment and the ecological environment; (4) the shanshui city is a Chinese version of the sustainable cities that are used internationally; and (5) the shanshui city is believed to be an ideal city that is consistent with the philosophy of ancient China, which advocates harmony between nature and man.