The China Paper Cutting Museum is the national museum for this traditional folk art form, located in Yangzhou partly because the city has been one of the major centres of the craft for centuries — Yangzhou paper cutting (yangzhou jianzhi) is recognised as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. The museum occupies a purpose-built building with several floors of exhibits tracing the history and regional variations of the art form across China.
The displays include exceptionally fine examples of both the traditional symmetrical cutting style and the more painterly freehand technique. The museum also offers cutting demonstrations and workshops. Even visitors with no prior interest in the craft tend to find the range of subject matter — from botanical compositions to elaborate scenes of multiple human figures cut from a single sheet — genuinely impressive. The museum is near the old quarter and easy to combine with a visit to the Crane Mosque and Dongguan Street.