The water town from Mission: Impossible — 9 rivers, 104 stone bridges, and covered corridors that make Xitang the most cinematic canal town in Zhejiang
Xitang is a 1,000-year-old water town in Zhejiang Province where 9 rivers converge into a web of narrow canals lined with Song and Ming dynasty stone houses. Its most distinctive feature is the 1km of covered corridors (langpeng) — roofed riverside walkways that let residents walk the entire waterfront without getting wet. The town became internationally famous as the backdrop for the Shanghai chase sequence in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and remains less commercialized than neighboring Wuzhen or Tongji.
Xitang's canal system was developed during the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) when Yangtze Delta water towns flourished as key nodes in the Grand Canal trade network. The architecture surviving today dates primarily to the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties — 122 arched stone bridges, narrow shikumen-style lanes, and residences built around interior light wells for humidity control. Unlike neighboring Wuzhen (which was emptied and rebuilt as a museum village), Xitang retains its resident population in the historic core, giving it a lived-in quality uncommon among China's heritage wat…