Each answer names its source. Where sources disagree, the answer says so instead of choosing one.
When did silk-making begin in China?
Xinhua reported in 2015 that a pale brown silk fragment from the Qianshanyang Site in Huzhou was tested as woven from domesticated silkworm silk. Radiocarbon dating put the fragments at 4,200 to 4,400 years old, which Xinhua took to mean that people in the Neolithic Yangtze region already reared silkworms and wove silk. The China National Silk Museum shows silk thread from the site dated to about 4,200 years ago.
Source: Xinhua, 25 June 2015; People's Daily, 29 September 2020, accessed 15 October 2026
Which silk crafts has UNESCO listed?
Two, both in 2009. Traditional silk-making techniques of China cover growing mulberry, raising silkworms, reeling, dyeing and weaving, and the damasks, gauzes, brocades and kesi tapestries made from the thread. Nanjing yunjin brocade weaving was listed separately. The silk-making craft is still practised around Taihu Lake in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, and in Chengdu.
Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage website, traditional silk-making techniques and Nanjing yunjin pages, accessed 15 October 2026
How is Nanjing yunjin woven?
Two people work together on a large loom using the through-warp, broken-weft method, with silk thread, gold thread and peacock-feather thread. The craft has more than a hundred steps, from preparing materials and designing patterns to building the loom and weaving. From the Yuan dynasty to the Ming and Qing, yunjin was made for the imperial court.
Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage website, Nanjing yunjin weaving page, accessed 15 October 2026
Which four embroidery styles are grouped together in China?
Suzhou, Xiang, Shu and Yue embroidery, the styles of Suzhou, Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong. On 19 October 2010 their representatives read the Shaping Declaration at Shaping in Changsha, proposing a joint application to list Chinese embroidery as intangible cultural heritage. China News Service called Xiang embroidery a craft more than 2,000 years old.
Source: China News Service, 20 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2026
What are Yue embroidery and Gu embroidery?
Both were on the national list of intangible cultural heritage when it was announced in 2006, in the category of traditional art. Yue embroidery, also called Guangxiu, comes from Guangzhou and nearby Nanhai, Panyu and Shunde, and has a history of more than a thousand years. It has four types: silk velvet, gold and silver thread, thread and bead embroidery. Gu embroidery began in Songjiang, Shanghai, in the Ming dynasty and is also called painted embroidery because it is half stitched and half painted.
Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage website, Yue embroidery and Gu embroidery pages, accessed 15 October 2026
How does the mulberry-dyke and fish pond system work?
In Huzhou, mulberry is planted on the pond banks, the leaves feed silkworms, silkworm waste feeds the fish, fish waste fertilises the pond and pond mud is used on the mulberry. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recognised the system in November 2017. Its core protected area of about 1,400 mu lies mainly around Linghu and Hefu in Nanxun District.
Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Fisheries Bureau, 28 November 2017, accessed 15 October 2026
What does the China National Silk Museum hold?
People's Daily reports nearly 70,000 items, mostly silk and other textiles, from clothing and shoes to fabric samples. Its Silk Road gallery shows Han and Tang textiles excavated along the route, Song clothing from the Jiangnan region, Ming and Qing official workshop products and modern qipao. The museum opened on 26 February 1992.
Source: People's Daily, 29 September 2020; Hangzhou Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, accessed 15 October 2026
What is in the Suzhou Silk Museum?
It opened in 1991 and covers 9,500 square metres, with six exhibition areas: history, modern, future, a mulberry garden, silk machinery and a gallery named for the silk master Qian Xiaoping. The collection holds 6,520 pieces of woven and embroidered textiles. The museum stands across from the North Temple Pagoda.
Source: China News Service, 25 February 2025; People's Daily Overseas, 25 February 2025, accessed 15 October 2026
What is special about the Chengdu Shu Brocade and Embroidery Museum?
It holds 9,373 cultural relics, 48 of them national-level, and arranges 3,000 square metres of displays in six parts from the origins of silk to Shu brocade techniques. People's Daily online reports a Qing-dynasty flower loom from the Daoguang reign that it says is the sole loom of its kind still in use anywhere in the world.
Source: People's Daily online, Sichuan channel, 21 August 2025, accessed 15 October 2026
Why is Shengze called a silk town?
The Suzhou municipal market regulator says Shengze was known in the Ming and Qing dynasties for the saying "ten thousand bolts of silk a day, clothing the world", and that the China Eastern Silk Market was founded there in October 1986. The Suzhou gazetteer office says Shengze formed as a village in 1488, and that commerce grew after the Jiajing reign as silk making developed.
Source: Suzhou Administration for Market Regulation, 26 September 2025; Suzhou Local Chronicles Office, 14 September 2024, accessed 15 October 2026
What is the Qianshanyang Site?
A settlement about 7 kilometres south of Huzhou city, now in Wuxing District, more than 4,000 years old. Excavations in 1956 and 1958 found silk fragments, and archaeologists named the Qianshanyang culture in November 2014. The site became a national protected site in 2006.
Source: Xinhua, 25 June 2015, accessed 15 October 2026
Where can the embroidery of Suzhou and Hunan be followed on this page?
China Embroidery Art Museum opened in Zhenhu, Suzhou, on 26 September 2007 and covers 8,000 square metres. Shaping Xiang Embroidery Museum opened in Changsha on 19 October 2010. The Chengdu museum on this page also covers the history of embroidery.
Source: China News Service, 27 September 2007 and 20 October 2010; People's Daily online, 21 August 2025, accessed 15 October 2026
