CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Songling, Suzhou

the oldest town of the city Wujiang, Jiangsu

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 13, 2025
Entity authorityQ3024147 ↗
Source-derived summary

Songling Town (simplified Chinese: 松陵镇; traditional Chinese: 松陵鎮; pinyin: Sōnglíng Zhèn) was built from 618 AD to 626 AD, the oldest town in Wujiang District, Suzhou, Jiangsu. Wujiang District People's Government is now located in it, and it is the political and cultural center of Wujiang District.

Urban area is now 34.35 square kilometers, planning area is more than 100 square kilometers. The administrative area is 148.58 square kilometers, with the jurisdiction of eight community committees, 46 administrative villages, and it has a total population of 12.04 million people.

Songling is located in the north of Wujiang. It has an area of 208.02 square kilometers and a population of 226,026 (in 2007). It has the jurisdiction of 10 communities, 22 administrative villages. It also has Sujiahang, Highway 227, Highway 230, Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal parallel north-south across. It is 90 kilometers away from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, and 40 kilometers from Sunan Shuofang International Airport.

History

On 12 July 2021, an annex to the Siji Kaiyuan Hotel collapsed due to illegal construction, killing 17 people and injuring another five.

Editorial summary

“Songling, Suzhou” enters the record as the oldest town of the city Wujiang, Jiangsu. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Songling, Suzhou and oldest can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007, 2021—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Songling, Suzhou and oldest.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Songling, Suzhou” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Songling, Suzhou and oldest provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3024147. Authority coordinates are 31.167, 120.642. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007 and 2021.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Songling, Suzhou”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Songling, Suzhou primary sources, Songling, Suzhou archive and Songling research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Songling, Suzhou”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Songling, Suzhou” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.