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The Eiffel Tower (left) is one of Paris's most iconic landmarks. The second largest replica in the world can be found in Tianducheng, China (right), after the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Nevada.

Photos of the Chinese Town That Duplicated Paris

Tianducheng isn’t the only city in China with an uncanny familiarity.

On the eastern coast of China —some 6,000 miles from the City of Light—a 354-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower dominates Tianducheng’s skyline.

Known as the “ Paris of the East”, the luxury real estate development in Zhejiang province was designed to evoke classical European charm. Its residents have their own Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysées main square, French neoclassical-style buildings, a fountain from the Luxembourg Gardens, and the centerpiece of the city: the second largest replica of the Eiffel Tower in the world after the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Nevada.

When Tianducheng first opened its gates more than a decade ago, it was described as a ghost town. While many of its homes remain vacant, the population has grown into the thousands, and it attracts a steady stream of Chinese and international tourists, including newlyweds looking for a picture-perfect backdrop.

“Duplitecture”

On the outskirts of Beijing, a replica of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is outfitted with cowboys and a Route 66. Red telephone booths, pubs, and statues of Winston Churchill pepper the corridors of Shanghai’s Thames Town. The city of Fuzhou is constructing a replica of Stratford-upon-Avon in tribute to Shakespeare, Fuyang built their own U.S. Capitol building, and the Austrian UNESCO World Heritage town of Hallstatt has a second home in Guangdong.

“ Entire townships and villages appear to have been airlifted from their historical and geographical foundations in England, France, Greece, the United States, and Canada and spot-welded to the margins of Chinese cities,” according to Bianca Bosker, author of Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China .

Bosker refers to this phenomenon as “duplitecture.” While critics argue that these sites are nothing more than kitschy knockoffs, the Chinese architects behind them believe their ability to recreate the world's greatest architectural marvels is a testament to their skill and technological advancement.

Socialist Core Values

“While it once considered itself to be the center of the world, now China is making itself into the center that actually contains the world,” according to Bosker.

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Visitors can now see authentic cultural icons like the Great Wall and Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor alongside a mini Versailles or Paris in the same trip–but the government is pushing back against the proliferation of these Western facsimiles.

During an ongoing Chinese geographical survey , officials found that traditional Chinese names were being replaced by foreign ones or disappearing altogether, including more than 400,000 village names. According to the New York Times , a regulation in China has prohibited the use of foreign monikers for locations since 1996 as a means to protect cultural heritage, but has had little effect.

"[China will] stem irregularities in naming the country’s roads, bridges, buildings, and residential compounds, targeting arbitrary uses of foreign and bizarre names”, Civil Affairs Minister Li Liguo said . “Certain types of names will be targeted, including names that damage sovereignty and national dignity, names that violate the socialist core values and conventional morality.”

So while Tianducheng's marble statues, ornate fountains, and geometrical gardens might resemble the City of Light—just don't call it Paris.

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TianduCheng Eifel Tower - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

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• (0.38 mi) Ascott Raffles City Hangzhou
• (0.17 mi) City Bistro - Hangzhou Marriott Hotel Qianjiang
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• (0.33 mi) SuZhe Hui (HangZhou WanXiangCheng)
• (0.33 mi) ZhangShengJi (WanXiangCheng)

China’s Tianducheng Is an Eerie Ghost Town Version of Paris

If and when Shanghai spills far enough into the countryside, Tianducheng and its neo-Classical apartments will be waiting

Rachel Nuwer

China has replicas of Venice, the White House, the World Trade Towers and the London-like Thames town—and once you know that it does not seem like such a stretch that there would be a faux Paris in China, too. In 2007, a town called Tianducheng, located about two hours west of Shanghai, began construction of a miniature Paris. The town—built to support a population of 10,000—came complete with a 300-foot tall Eiffel tower, grey Parisian facades, cobblestoned streets and Renaissance fountains. Th e Atlantic reports :

While the experts scoff, the people who build and inhabit these places are quite proud of them. As the saying goes, “The way to live best is to eat Chinese food, drive an American car, and live in a British house. That’s the ideal life.” The Chinese middle class is living in Orange County, Beijing, the same way you listen to reggae music or lounge in Danish furniture. In practice, though, the depth and scale of this phenomenon has few parallels. No one knows how many facsimile communities there are in China, but the number is increasing every day.

In Tianducheng’s case, however, things did not go as planned.  Despite its charms, the residents never showed, and today, only a handful  stroll those eastern boulevards. It’s not that Paris isn’t popular, but rather that the location is all wrong. Tianducheng’s developers plopped the city in the middle of the rural countryside, cut off from urban connections or public transportation, the Huffington Post points out . 

Now, the ghost town mainly attracts urban decay tourists and the occasional wedding couple who come to pose for photographs in front of the Eiffel tower. But experts warn that the Paris of the East hasn’t lost its shot at becoming a bustling city of light and love quite yet. Business Insider explains :

China cannot afford to wait to build its new cities. Instead, investment and construction must be aligned with the future influx of urban dwellers. The “ghost city” critique misses this point entirely.

If and when Shanghai and China’s countless other urban hubs spill into the countryside, Tianducheng and its neo-Classical apartments will be waiting.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Natural Gas Fracking May Be the Only Industry in China That’s Developing Slowly  Hollywood Goes to China 

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Rachel Nuwer | | READ MORE

Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science writer based in Brooklyn.

A photographer's side-by-side pictures compare China's fake Paris to the real one

• China is home to many copycat cities, and has its own versions of Hallstatt, Austria, and Venice, Italy.
• Tianducheng, China, is home to a realistic Paris replica complete with its own Eiffel Tower.
• Paris-based photographer François Prost flew to Tianducheng to compare his hometown to the copycat version.
• The similarities in his photos of the two are striking.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories .

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Paris should be very flattered.

While China has created detailed replicas of cities like Hallstatt, Austria, and Venice, Italy, its faux City of Lights takes the cake.

In fact, it almost had Paris-based photographer  François Prost , fooled.

Prost spent a week in 2017 traveling to the copycat city in Tianducheng to compare it to his hometown, and his photos are so similar that it can be hard to tell which were taken in China and which were taken in France.

His photos have now been compiled into a book, called " Paris, China ."

Keep scrolling to see if you can tell them apart.

François Prost, a French photographer and graphic designer, told Insider that he's been fascinated by China's replicas of European cities and monuments for a while.

However, the idea of comparing the real Paris to China's faux version only came to him after he read an article about a journalist who went to every Paris in the US to see if locals felt any sort of connection to their French namesake. Spoiler alert: They didn't.

He flew to Tianducheng, China, for a week in late 2017 and called it "surreal."

Tianducheng, a gated community in the suburbs of Hangzhou, was built in 2007 . Also known as Sky City, it's famous for its 300-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower, as well as its Parisian-style architecture and landscaping.

Prost said he saw famous Parisian landmarks completely devoid of tourists on his first day in Tianducheng.

He said it felt bizarre to be sitting in an Airbnb with views of the Eiffel Tower in China.

But he soon found that Tianducheng was a very residential place filled with families.

While the Parisian said the replicas of his hometown seemed odd to him, he liked that Tianducheng wasn't full of tourists but rather people living there instead.

Besides the architecture, Prost said Tianducheng hadn't adopted a thing from its French counterpart.

Architecture aside, Prost said the town didn't remind him of Paris.

While Prost meant to only photograph the imitation architecture, he was quickly drawn in by the people who call this fake Paris home without caring that it's a copycat city.

"It made me think that a place is mainly shaped by the people, not automatically by the architecture," he said. "This gave me the idea to also photograph the people, and I started doing portraits."

He took hundreds of photos in Tianducheng, then spent months trying to replicate them in Paris, working to get the angles just right.

He said he created indexes of every attraction he photographed, organizing them by every single angle he photographed them from, before setting out to replicate a selection back in Paris.

He said there were three main areas in Tianducheng that looked like Paris.

There was the Eiffel Tower, a Versailles replica, and avenues lined with imitation Haussmannian buildings , a type of architecture prevalent in Paris.

One spot in particular, on a hill with a view of the Eiffel Tower, really struck him.

He said the area, just like the Trocadero in Paris, was lined with couples taking engagement and wedding pictures. He says that as a Parisian, he can tell the difference, but thinks anyone less familiar with the city would be hard-pressed to tell the two locations apart.

Seeing these striking similarities in two destinations that are almost 6,000 miles apart got him thinking about what makes a place authentic.

He cites Venice, for example, which he said people visit for its grandeur and beauty, but has been so overrun with tourists for the last decade that it has become a caricature of itself in a way.

Prost says that despite the Champs-Élysées being an iconic symbol of Paris, it doesn't feel Parisian to him at all.

To him, the Champs-Élysées is more of an international tourist attraction that locals avoid, and that is filled with shops and restaurants you could find anywhere in the world.

In the future, he said, "maybe these places will lose a little bit of their authenticity," adding that people might "go to the fake ones because they'll feel more authentic because you can see real people living there normally."

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• Main content

Tianducheng – China’s Strange City Of Paris

• Last Updated: January 15, 2023

Scattered along a barren landscape, towering skyscrapers collect cobwebs and apartment buildings are left abandoned.

The empty streets of new age ghost cities in China have been attracting international curiosity for years. The rapid construction of new towns is being completed at a phenomenal rate, in the hope that the future will see a sudden influx of locals filling their vacant rooms.

The Chinese government is preparing for the expected shortage of housing that will soon impact the overpopulated communist nation. Any train ride along the eastern side of the country will expose hundreds of these unfilled settlements.

A few hours from the modern metropolis of Shanghai, one such city is raising eyebrows. Not just for its empty towers but also for its ironically familiar style.

Mid-afternoon rambles by as I stroll down the famed Champs Elysées. Weaving between manicured hedges and sprawling fountains, the iconic Eiffel Tower soars ahead in the distance.

Parisian facades rise high on both sides of the boulevard. But the street vendors are selling steamed dumplings, not baguettes. Locals sip green tea, not wine.

After our four days in the city, the atmosphere has become stranger and more complex. Despite the uncanny resemblance on the surface, this is not Paris, and we are a long way from France.

Tianducheng is an urban development that has failed spectacularly. On the outskirts of Hangzhou , a large city only an hour by bullet train from Shanghai, rural farmland has been rezoned to make way for a grandiose plan that is quickly becoming the stuff of fabled legend.

China has been building sensational replicas of internationally famous monuments for years. In Shenzhen, one can walk between both the Sphinx and the former World Trade Centre buildings at the ‘Window Of The World’ amusement park.

The largest man made building on the planet is in Chengdu , complete with a sprawling artificial beach and a fake sun. In Tianducheng, investors had Paris in their sights.

Developers started construction on Tianducheng in 2007, complete with a 1:3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower and a recreation of the fountain from the Luxemburg Gardens.

Original plans had an expected capacity of 10’000 residents. Today the town’s population is around 10% of that. The streets are unoccupied, shop fronts have been boarded up, iron railings are rusted over and that famous fountain is bone dry.

A portion of Hangzhou’s affluent middle class flocked to Tianducheng, wide eyed and with the hopes that its popularity would take off. A Parisian replica in the Zhejiang province would perhaps convince domestic tourists that there is no need to travel abroad when France’s best attraction is in their own country.

Unfortunately high real estate prices and a change in economic growth have resulted in few visitors. Those that do arrive are usually inquisitive travellers or wedding parties and photographers on a day trip from nearby cities.

Young couples love the idea of having their wedding snaps taken in front of the Eiffel Tower, but they have little other reason to stick around.

A lot of the city’s failings stem from its odd location. Hectares of farmland surround Tianducheng, which in itself is almost an hour by public transport from Hangzhou’s central train station.

Only one hotel is open for foreign guests – the aptly named “Tianducheng International Resort” – and a handful of eateries serve up typical Chinese fare.

The skies remain grey most of the year from the heavy pollution drifting in from factories in the surrounding area. The only time you will see a hive of activity is at the end of the day, when construction workers finish their shifts.

The park that surrounds the Eiffel Tower is littered with trash and overgrown with weeds. The odd cow wanders across the fields while security guards sleep in the shadow of the tower. Basketball courts are covered in dirt, with no one around to use them.

One corner of the park holds the worker’s quarters. The sanitary and living standards are appalling, but no one complains for fear of losing their employment opportunities on the adjacent building sites.

On the Champs Elysées, the situation is only marginally better. No water flows through the canals and business doors are bolted shut.

The only real estate agent in town does not have enough window space to advertise all of the units for sale. Even if you were interested in purchasing the surprisingly luxurious estates, the office is dark and empty.

Only two places seem to be thriving in the ghost city: The construction sites building more and more apartment buildings, and the investor’s information centre. This immense hall holds a 3D model of how Tianducheng will eventually look, if construction is ever completed.

The hopeful look on the salesperson’s face when we walked through the door was heartbreaking, as she quickly realised we were just curious investigators, not people brandishing chequebooks.

At night, the few Chinese locals who live in the town gather outside the information centre to dance and practice Tai Chi. They try to maintain a life of normality, even though the true realities are dim.

There is no money to be made from this fake Parisian city, and no incoming wealth. No flocks of tourists and no romantic movies being filmed beneath the Eiffel Tower. Just more money being spent on new residences that no one can afford or would even want.

The sounds of our footsteps echo down the empty Champs Elysées as we finally leave the estranged Paris of the East.

A lonely child plays in a makeshift sandbox while his parents try desperately to make a sale from their streetside market stall. Cranes slew above us, shifting building supplies to create another addition in the ghost city.

The Eiffel Tower looms behind us, slowly disappearing into the smog. How long will it take before the last of the residents have no choice but to also disappear into the next failed development?

This story was written by Jarryd Salem and originally appeared on News.com.au.

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• Eiffel tower

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Location: Paris, France

GPS : 48° 51' 30.13'' North / 2° 17' 40.13'' East

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Copies of the Eiffel tower in China

Replica of Hangzhou

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Hangzhou (China)

In Hangzhou, China is a Replica of the Eiffel Tower 108 meters high. It is in the center of a currently bushy area located in the city. The idea for the promoters was to make a sort of park of the main monuments of the world. He had planned Mount Rushmore, the White House, and so on. Only the Eiffel Tower was actually built in 2007, but the rest of the project is abandoned, leaving it alone, in the middle of nowhere. The Chinese hope that it will be quickly resumed.

This tower is 108 meters high (354 feet) and is on the 1:3 rd . It is made of steel for a weight of around 1,000 tons. Many couples come there, sometimes hundreds of kilometers, to get their picture taken in front of them, Paris being in their eyes the capital of romanticism.

Replica of Macao

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Macao (China)

This Eiffel Tower is one of the rare presented here not yet realized during the writing of these lines, it is supposed to be in service in the 2nd quarter of 2016. It is part of a complex named "The Parisian Macao" in Cotai Strip. As the style is French, this tower will serve as the figurehead of the complex. It is at a scale of 1: 2, 150m high. It will host a restaurant on the 3rd floor. If the project respects the computer image it will be perfect, but the actual realization will have to be checked to make sure that it corresponds to the project.

A curiosity: The first floor of the tower will be connected to the shopping center by a covered tunnel, allowing visitors to go from the monument to the shops without going outside.

Replica of Shandong

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Shandong (China)

China has several copies of the Eiffel Tower, it symbolizes for them the romanticism. Shandong Province has placed one in public space, at the top of a few steps. It was meant to bring more tourists to the area.

Aesthetically this tower is not badly made but nothing more. For example each floor marks a break in the curve of the tower, while the original tower is only a single curve. The first floor has a curious roof too, it does not exist on the real tower. When there is a little something that is disturbing to the pillars. This is probably because the decorative bow goes down to the ground while on the Parisian tower, it stops in contact with the pillars.

Replica of Shangai

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Shangai (China)

This Replica of the Eiffel Tower is very pretty, it is located in Shanghai, in the city center, in front of a shopping center. It has a purpose to be decorative, it adorns a carousel of wooden horses. For the Chinese, Paris is a very romantic place, which explains why there are many references to this city in China.

Replica of Shenyang

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Shenyang (China)

It is in Shenyang that this copy is 30m high. Its golden color is what is most original about it, because otherwise it must be recognized that it is rather successful, without major flaws. It is on a small black base that highlights the effects.

Replica of Shenzen

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Shenzen (China)

The city of Shenzen, China, has built in a park a beautiful Eiffel Tower perfectly reproduced. It must be said that it is in an amusement park reproducing the main monuments of the world, a park as there are several in the world. It's called "Window of the Word". This tower is very big, it is 100m high, a scale of 1: 3 th .

This tower is very well reproduced, as said above. We do not detect, with the naked eye, of aesthetic problem compared to the real Eiffel tower.

Replica of Suzhou

Replica of the Eiffel tower at Suzhou (China)

China has various copies of the Eiffel Tower, most of them very resembling. But it has only a vague resemblance to the original, it is the Dong Wu Tower in Suzhou. It has some similarities as the Parisian tower: It is a slender pyramid with a slight curvature, it has a fairly massive floor equivalent to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, and a 2nd floor similar to the 3rd floor. It has telecommunication antennas, too. In addition, its general architecture is similar to the Eiffel Tower. On the other hand, it differs by the general plan, the 4 pillars are truncated and when they join the floor, it takes an octagonal shape. The third floor, too, is circular instead of square. Note that the lighting was made by a Frenchman.

We are not in the presence of a real copy but rather of a tour of inspiration "eiffeic".

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'Eiffel Tower' lights up quiet suburb in Chinese city

Hangzhou (China) (AFP) – As decorative fountains frame a view of the Eiffel Tower and a fashionable young woman walks a poodle nearby, you might mistake China's Tianducheng neighbourhood for Paris -- if not for the concrete towers in the distance and Chinese signs on every shopfront.

Issued on: 22/09/2023 - 14:07 Modified: 22/09/2023 - 14:05

Built in the 2000s, the residential area lies on the outskirts of Hangzhou, the city hosting around 12,000 athletes for the Asian Games that open on Saturday -- a key stop for many of the world's top athletes before the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Tianducheng is a quirky relic of the country's turn-of-the-century craze for everything foreign.

Apartment blocks decorated with the City of Light's iron balconies and mansard roofs flank a "boulevard" where motorised delivery tricycles zip past a braised duck-head stall.

Pensioners clutching plastic bags of groceries pause to take in the sights under a grey sky, while weathered horse statues rear up from a fountain that could have come out of the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Once advertised as a luxury community and a venue for French cultural festivals, Tianducheng languished for years with unfilled shop units and uninhabited apartments before Hangzhou's booming tech industry brought eager buyers to its leafy avenues.

The tower is one of many replicas of Western architecture that dot the country where developers once looked to Europe and North America for inspiration, including a British-inspired Thames Town in Shanghai and a subtropical Interlaken in tech hub Shenzhen.

And in Jujun, a 2001 development in outer Beijing that literally translates to "Orange County", McMansions complete with parched lawns bring a slice of Southern California to the Chinese capital.

They are relics of a bygone era, with China's communist leaders clamping down on "bizarre", foreign-inspired structures in recent years.

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• China Has Built Its Very...

Can China's Replica of Paris Compete With the Real Thing?

What makes a city so special? If it’s simply its famous monuments, then you can easily create a replica, like China has made of Paris, known as Tianducheng. But with its cultural and historical significance, complete with its quirks and traditions, Paris has so many aspects that can’t be replicated.

China has built a new paris called tianducheng.

There’s a new Paris called Tianducheng in the suburbs of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Tianducheng’s construction began in around 2007, with its crowning glory being its 108-metre-tall (354-foot) replica of the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world, so it’s easy to see why another city would want a copy. Of course, the real Eiffel Tower is actually 324 metres (1,063 feet), but it’s a convincing look-alike thanks to the 31 square kilometres (12 square miles) of Parisian-style architecture, fountains and landscaping that reinforce the illusion.

However, the first thing that strikes you when you visit is the deathly silence. The spin-off town was originally planned as a city for around 10,000 inhabitants, though the current population of Tianducheng is 2,000 people, which is minuscule compared to the real City of Light. The peculiar silence is the first indication that something is missing in this replica.

You can’t replicate history

The sense of history that lingers in the air is what attracts many people to Paris. In fact, monuments only gain meaning because of their historical significance, which renders a replica a little pointless.

The continued material presence of monuments, such as the towering Arc de Triomphe and the nearby Place de la Concorde, are actually our best portals to the past.

These monuments allow us to revisit important historical events that have shaped the modern world by proxy of sharing their presence, a little like time travel.

Take the Arc de Triomphe, for example. It’s a travel inspiration not just because it’s always on postcards, but because it has played such an iconic role in Parisian history.

When the city was finally liberated by French and American troops after WWII, for example, General Charles de Gaulle led a triumphant parade down the Champs-Élysées the following day – a celebration that still lives in recent memory for it was at this point that a new government was formed.

You can’t replicate cultural significance

If you can’t replicate historical significance, then you also can’t replicate its cultural importance. Take the most iconic site of Paris, the Tour Eiffel.

Believe it or not, but when it was first built, Parisians truly hated the Eiffel Tower. But then, it became a symbol of national pride when the French tricolour flag was hoisted above it to symbolise the regaining of power after the liberation from Nazis. Therefore, that sentiment and significance that remains in people’s hearts is another element that can’t be replicated.

That is why Parisians admire the monument – because it plays a part in their collective history, not just because it’s an unusual piece of architecture that leaves tourists awe-struck.

The same goes for the Champs-Élysées. While it revels in glamour and chic in our contemporary world, this stretch has known darker times.

Not only did the Germans hang swastika flags on the Arc de Triomphe when they were in power, but they also organised military parades with a marching band on the Champs-Élysées and Avenue Foch, for the benefit of the German army photographers and newsreel cameramen to show off their military prowess.

So, being able to reclaim the Champs-Élysées from the Germans as authentically French is why Parisians are so proud this street exists. In this way, building a replica in China doesn’t make much sense – and goes against everything the Champs-Élysées has come to represent.

You can’t replicate all the quirks

Even if you can simply build a new Paris, with all the right monuments in all the right places, you can’t replicate all the quirks, traditions and values that belong to the people that live there.

For example, instead of shaking hands, waving hello or hugging, you’ll see French people say hello to friends by leaning forward and touching cheeks, making a light kissing sound. This act of greeting is known as faire la bise and has a whole set of social codes attached specifically to the region, including the number of kisses and which cheek to kiss first. This social code is uniquely French, which means that only the surface-level of the city can be replicated. Some people would argue that it’s actually the people that make a place so special, so if there are no Parisians, then surely, there would be no Paris.

There are traditions specific to Paris

What makes visiting the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre so special isn’t just the architecture of which you can take a photograph. It’s the fabulous street entertainment, typically Parisian, that greets you as you sit down with a croissant on the steps.

Take mime artistry, for example. This fabulously silly French art still happens on the streets of Paris – it’s not just a myth from the movies – and the Sacré-Coeur has become a hotspot for some of the city’s most talented street artists.

Climb the 222 stairs to the top and you’ll be treated not only to the most breathtaking view of Paris, spreading right across the city, but also to football tricksters, musicians and amusing mime artists reaping chaos with local traffic below.

Musicians playing the accordion is another tradition associated with Paris. You’ll hear it on the metro, you’ll hear it on the streets – there’s no instrument more iconic than the accordion, made famous in the French film Amélie .

In this way, if somewhere wants to build a new Sacré-Coeur, there needs to be all the fascinating characters you’d find at the original – such as mime artists and accordion musicians – for it to be a convincing replica. In China, the deathly silence is broken only by the sound of clicking cameras, not by an accordion.

You can’t replicate the weather

There are some things that a replica could do better than an original and that includes weather. But some people would argue that you should take the good with the bad and appreciate a destination for all it has to offer.

Everyone knows it rains a lot in Paris, but you only really realise how heavy it can be when you get caught in one of its deluges. There’s even a French idiom, Il pleut des cordes (it’s raining ropes), for a poetically accurate take on the force of Parisian rainfalls, falling endlessly like ropes.

This weather has inspired poets and artists for centuries and has come to represent the city’s personality. Therefore, it should remain a part of the city’s character – and Paris’ weather is definitely an aspect that can’t be replicated.

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

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Watch CBS News

Eiffel Tower in China? Why the East replicates the West

July 18, 2013 / 10:35 AM EDT / CBS News

(CBS News) Tensions may be high on the Korean border, but according to recent reports that's not stopping North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from going ahead with plans for a miniature world amusement park.

The park will include replicas of landmarks such as Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower. The North Koreans may have gotten the idea from their neighbors in China, where in a town two hours from Shanghai, about 5,000 people are living in a replica city of Paris.

You can find copies of western architecture everywhere in China: the London Bridge, the U.S. Capitol plus some curious mixes of the Capitol and White House.

But it's not just the buildings; some of these structures are part of whole replica cities.

There's a growing industry devoted to copying cities for the Chinese to live and work. There is an office complex in Tianjin, which is the fourth-largest city in the country, that has been designed to mimic Manhattan. Elsewhere, there's a sweeping recreation of a town in Austria and a detailed replica of an English suburb.

One of the best replicas is a dead-on copy of a boulevard in Paris complete with a scaled-down Eiffel Tower. Around 5,000 people live in faux-Paris. They were sold on the glamour and romance of the real city.

For many Chinese people, living in a copycat city gives them an elevated status, and oddly enough it is because it's different from the endless rows of high-rise apartments that saturate China's cities.

"To me, we are experiencing this kind of adolescent period in China about these buildings," said Ruan Hao, a rising Princeton-trained architect who calls the copycat craze temporary and is "confidant China will grow out of it." In the end, he predicts the phase will end as China becomes more powerful and people have more country pride.

Even presuming this is a phase, East and West still view these cities through much different eyes. Where a westerner might see envy or a lack of original thinking, the Chinese pride themselves on the skill of replication.

For Wyatt Andrews' full report, watch the video in the player above.

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12 Interesting Facts and Secrets About the Eiffel Tower

Explore the history, science, and secrets of Paris' most famous landmark.

The Eiffel Tower — or, la Tour Eiffel — has long been one of the world's most recognizable landmarks, symbolizing the romance and ingenuity of the City of Light . 

Designed as the centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair, the Tower was meant to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution and to show off France's modern industrial prowess on a world stage. 

And that it did. The tower's construction, finished after two years, two months, and five days, was considered a marvel of precision and speed. Gustave Eiffel's civil engineering firm used 7,300 tons of iron and 2.5 million rivets , and the result stood triumphant over the Champs de Mars, receiving more than two million visitors during the fair. 

The Tower’s now-famous silhouette has been  emulated around the world  in places like Las Vegas, Prague, Tianducheng, China, and, of course, Paris, Texas. The design wasn’t without its detractors , however — a "Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel,” signed by the likes of Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas fils , and other well-known artists, was published in the newspaper Le Temps before the project’s completion. The letter argued that the tower would be “a gigantic black factory chimney, its barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments and belittling our works of architecture, which will just disappear before this stupefying folly.”

In defiance of such protests, the Eiffel Tower did see the light of day and has stood the test of time. It remains one of the most visited monuments in the world, welcoming almost seven million visitors a year and more than 300 million people since its debut. It has changed over the years, with the addition of lighting, fresh coats of paint, and numerous installations that have come and gone. 

And there’s still more to this landmark than meets the eye. Despite the incredible number of people who have visited since it opened, La Dame de Fer still has a few secrets to share.  

There’s a penthouse apartment at the top.

Gustave Eiffel reserved the uppermost level of the tower for himself, where he hosted famous guests like Thomas Edison in a private apartment that he designed. The space has since been transformed into a recreation of Eiffel's office, complete with wax figures of himself, his daughter, and Edison, and it's open for the public to tour.

Gustave Eiffel didn’t design the tower.

While the tower is named for Eiffel, it was actually Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier — two engineers who worked for his company — who designed the structure. They also commissioned French architect Stephen Sauvestre to work on the appearance of the project in order to quell public concerns about the harsh, utilitarian nature of the original design. They ultimately beat out more than 100 other projects in a contest to choose the main attraction of the World's Fair.  

The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be torn down after 20 years.

The tower was built with the intent of showing off France's industrial prowess during the World's Fair, but the plan was to tear it down after 20 years. However, Eiffel cleverly put a radio antenna and wireless telegraph transmitter in the tower. After proving radio’s usefulness to the government in 1910, Eiffel was granted a 70-year extension to his lease. By 1980, of course, the tower had become an indelible symbol of both Paris and France, and it was in no danger of demolition.

The Eiffel Tower was almost destroyed during World War II.

In August 1944, as the Nazis were losing control of occupied Paris, Adolf Hitler commanded his generals to level the city. Plans were drawn up to mine the Eiffel Tower with explosives. Thankfully, Allied troops swooped in before the order could be carried out. Subsequent air raids over Paris caused significant damage, but the Eiffel Tower survived the war intact.

The Eiffel Tower is a cousin of sorts to the Statue of Liberty.

As sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was designing “Liberty Enlightening the World”, he called upon his mentor, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, to design the statue’s internal framework. After Viollet-le-Duc died in 1879, Bartholdi turned to Eiffel and Koechlin. They proved their iron expertise with Lady Liberty before moving on to the Iron Lady.

The Eiffel Tower has been home to both a post office and a theater. 

The tower has been home to several businesses throughout the years, many of which are now gone. These include the newspaper “Le Figaro”, which had an office on the second floor for six months during the 1889 World's Fair, a post office tucked into the first floor, and a wooden theater on the first floor designed by Sauvestre. 

Gim42/Getty Images

The Eiffel Tower doubled as a scientific laboratory.

Eiffel, an avid scientist, housed a meteorology lab on the tower's third floor. He was known to perform studies in physics and aerodynamics there, even building a wind tunnel at the foot of the structure. Eiffel opened the doors of the laboratory for other scientists to use for their experiments as well.

The Eiffel Tower moves.

The massive iron structure is wind resistant and will sway during a storm. Wind isn't the only thing that can make the enormous tower move, though — the heat of the sun causes the iron to expand , making the Tower grow a few centimeters during the summer months. The tower will also lean an average of six inches away from the sun, as the one side facing the direct light heats up faster than the other three sides.

The Eiffel Tower is covered in the names of scientists.

The names of French scientists and engineers working in the 19th century were not forgotten by history — not only are they attached to several Parisian streets, but 72 of them are also engraved on the Eiffel Tower. The tributes were painted over in the early 20th century, but thanks to a restoration effort in the late 1980s, they are once again visible. Eagle-eyed visitors can see names like Foucault, Dumas, and Perrier cut into the iron surrounding the tower's first floor.

It takes a lot of work to keep the Eiffel Tower looking good.

Every seven years, workers apply around 60 tons of paint to the tower. This not only keeps La Dame de Fer looking good, but it also helps keep the iron from rusting.

The Eiffel Tower’s sparkling lights are copyrighted art. 

The Tower’s first light show coincided with the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in 1925. Automaker Andre Citröen financed a 200,000-bulb show that featured a shower of stars, alternating Zodiac symbols, comets, and (naturally) his car brand’s name at the finale. Another show, featuring 336 yellow-orange spotlights, came sixty years later , but the now-famous sparkling light show, consisting of 20,000 bulbs, first lit up the night sky New Year’s Eve 1999 to ring in the new millennium. While the Tower itself is in the public domain , its illumination is protected by copyright under French law . However, don’t call your lawyer just yet — this only applies to pictures taken for professional use. You’re free to share any personal pictures of the Eiffel Tower and its lights as you please.  

There’s a Champagne bar at the top.

If you're brave enough to climb the stairs to the top of the tower, reward yourself with a glass of Champagne from the Champagne Bar . There's nothing like a glass of bubbly with a spectacular view.

No matter the destination, Travel + Leisure GO can turn your vacation dreams into reality. With nearly endless reservation options to fly or stay, book your next getaway — near or far — at Travel + Leisure GO .

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Tour the Eiffel Tower

Explore the iconic structure from the ground up in street view.

By Google Arts & Culture

Gustave Eiffel's master work, the most recognisable peak in the Paris skyline, is one of the most iconic structures in world history. Here, you can explore every inch of its 324m height.

Did you know this French landmark was built in just 2 years, 2 months and 5 days? Quite a technical feat for the 19th Century!

It was completed in 1889 as the centrepiece of the World's Fair, or Paris Exposition, commemorating the French Revolution of 1789 and showcasing French aesthetics and engineering to the world.

Explore the towers observation decks, here!

Or explore the avenues and park space at its base, gazing up in wonder like so many before you and countless many after.

Want to learn more? Discover how the tower was built

The birth of the Eiffel tower

Eiffel tower, the eiffel tower in 1900, the eiffel tower's inauguration and first visitors, the construction of the eiffel tower.

• The Official Eiffel Tower Website

The Eiffel Tower celebrates the Chinese New Year

To ring in the year of the metal Rat, the Eiffel Tower invites visitors to attend a parade led by 16 dancers from the French Association of the Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance on Saturday, 25 January, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm, with the notable presence of two world champions in the discipline.

The program includes traditional dances created especially for the monument, each lasting 7 to 8 minutes and performed to the s ounds of cymbals and traditional drums. Demonstrations of spins and acrobatics are also planned.

In addition, we want to remind you that the Tower is developing numerous initiatives to improve its visitor services, particularly for Chinese clients, including signposts in Chinese since late 2019, an online showcase page on Wechat since last year, a mobile app in Chinese to be released in February 2020, and more payment options like WeChat and AliPay coming in spring 2020 for online ticketing.  

About the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) On November 1st, 2017, The City of Paris entrusted the operation and management of the Eiffel Tower to SETE within the framework of a delegation of public services for 13 years. SETE is a local public company whose capital is 99% owned by the City of Paris and 1% by the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area. Bernard Gaudillère, a Parisian Council Member, chairs its Board of Directors. SETE has a staff of nearly 340 employees, led by Patrick Branco Ruivo, and generated 99.8 million euros in revenue in 2018.  

• The Eiffel Tower celebrates the Chinese New Year - January 20.pdf

Useful links

• www.toureiffel.paris

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Celebrate the Chinese New Year in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower!

Friday 24 January 2020

Modified the 27/12/23

The esplanade of the Eiffel Tower will host demonstrations of traditional Chinese spins and acrobatics from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm to celebrate the arrival of the year of the metal Rat. Each dance will last 7 to 8 minutes and will be accompanied by the sounds of traditional Chinese drums and cymbals. Come discover this parade in the unique setting of the Eiffel Tower’s esplanade, open to all and free of charge.

Numerous initiatives are being developed to better serve the needs of our visitors, especially those from China, with signposting in Chinese, a Wechat page, a mobile app in 4 languages, including Chinese, to be released in February 2020, plus new online payment options such as WeChat Pay and AliPay in the course of 2020.  

Saturday, January 25 - The performance

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