Dayan is the ancient Naxi heart of Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of cobblestone lanes, wooden merchant houses, and clear streams that have threaded the same channels for seven hundred years. The layout is deliberately labyrinthine — unlike most Chinese cities, it was built without a central axis, following instead the contours of the land and the flow of the Yulong River tributaries that run through it. Getting lost is not a problem; every lane eventually leads back to Sifang Square or the market square at the northern end.
The best time to explore is early morning, before the tour groups arrive, when shopkeepers open their shutters, Naxi women in traditional blue-and-white aprons carry baskets to market, and the streams catch the slanted light. The historic core around Sifang Square becomes very busy by mid-morning. The northern and western quarters, away from the main tourist drag, retain more of the everyday character of a living town. story: > The old town survived the devastating 1996 Lijiang earthquake largely intact because of the flexibility of its traditional wood-frame construction — the mortise-and-tenon joinery absorbs seismic movement rather than resisting it. The modern parts of the city suffered far greater damage. The earthquake, paradoxically, accelerated Dayan's UNESCO inscription the following year.