Lion Forest (in simplified Chinese 狮子林) is located in 23 Garden Road at north-eastern part of Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province. It has an open area of about 14 acres. In this Forest, there is actually some houses, and some people would rather call it a garden. Lion Forest is one of the best representatives of the classical Suzhou forests and it would be included in the “World Heritage List”, with the largest surviving ancient domestic rockery base. With the rockery stone lake, this forest is often known as the “Rockery Kingdom.”

Lion Forest was built in the Yuan Dynasty. At the year in 1341, monks such as the Zen Master arrived at Suzhou for preaching. Therefore, his disciples decided to buy a large land and built a house in the forest for him to live. When Zen master came, he was so happy and he decided to call the forest Lion Forest to commemorate his master and he decided to stay in this place.

However, after the death of Zen Master, his disciples left the garden and so the Lion Forest was abandoned. The houses and the temple became very old and dirty. During the Ming Dynasty, another monk passed through the forest and found the temple. He decided to renovate it and after years of hard work, he successfully restored the beauty of the Lion Forest. Moreover, he added some Buddhist features into the forest, making it more unique.

During the Qing Dynasty, the government decided to renovate the Lion Forest once again. The renovated Lion Forest was more elegant and it was more attractive. After the founding of People’s Republic of China, the central government decided to open up the Lion Forest to the public in 1954. Therefore, such a beautiful forest can now be seen.

When you visit Suzhou, you would probably find that there are a lot of places with beautiful natural scenery. However, in Lion Forest, you would be able to see how artificial architecture fuse with natural forest views, and it is much more interesting.