Digital Twin Project Launches for Xidi and Hongcun Preservation

The Anhui Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism has officially launched an 80 million RMB digital twin (数字孪生, shùzì luánshēng) project for Xidi (西递, Xīdì) and Hongcun (宏村, Hóngcūn), two UNESCO World Heritage sites in Yi County, with completion targeted by Q4 2026. The project aims to create high-fidelity virtual replicas of both villages, enabling real-time monitoring of structural integrity, environmental conditions, and visitor flows to support a new generation of heritage management for Huizhou culture (徽州文化, Huīzhōu wénhuà).

Xidi and Hongcun, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000, represent the pinnacle of Huizhou-style architecture from the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, weathering, tourist pressure, and aging infrastructure have accelerated deterioration. The digital twin initiative is the largest single investment in digital preservation for Anhui’s heritage sites to date, promising a data-driven approach to conservation that could serve as a model for other historic villages across China.

What the Digital Twin Project Entails

The project combines 3D laser scanning (3D激光扫描, 3D jīguāng sǎomiáo), drone (无人机, wúrénjī) photogrammetry, and IoT sensor networks to capture every architectural and environmental detail across both sites. Over the next 18 months, a team of 60 engineers and heritage specialists will scan more than 1,800 traditional buildings, including ancestral halls, private residences, and bridges, covering a combined heritage area of 15 square kilometers. Each structure will be modeled with a target accuracy of 95%, accurate down to the millimeter level.

Sensors embedded in key structures will monitor humidity, temperature, vibration, and air quality in real time, feeding data into a centralized cloud platform. This allows conservation teams to detect early signs of mold growth, wood rot, or structural stress long before visible damage occurs. The platform also integrates visitor flow data from ticketing gates and CCTV analytics, enabling dynamic crowd management during peak tourist seasons, which currently see up to 2 million visitors annually across both sites.

Beneath the surface, the digital models will include subsurface soil and foundation data collected via ground-penetrating radar, addressing long-standing concerns about groundwater erosion beneath Xidi’s ancient drainage systems. This is the first time such comprehensive underground data has been integrated into a digital twin for a Chinese heritage village, adding a crucial layer of structural context.

Preservation Challenges for Xidi and Hongcun

Xidi and Hongcun face a unique set of preservation pressures that have intensified over the past two decades. Xidi, known for its 124 preserved Ming-era residential compounds and intricate stone carvings, experiences significant humidity fluctuations due to its proximity to the Huangshan mountain range. Hongcun, famous for its moon-pond and watercourse system, battles algae blooms and silt accumulation in its network of open canals — a problem that worsened by 30% between 2018 and 2023 according to local monitoring data.

Tourist footfall compounds these issues. Annual visitor numbers to Hongcun alone grew from 680,000 in 2015 to 1.15 million in 2023, increasing wear on floor tiles, staircases, and wooden thresholds in the most-visited courtyard houses. Previous preservation efforts relied on manual inspections conducted every six months, with response times to structural alerts averaging 14 days. The digital twin project aims to reduce that response window to under 24 hours through automated anomaly detection.

Climate change adds another dimension. Anhui has recorded a 1.8°C average temperature rise since 2000, accelerating the decay of historic wooden structural elements. The digital twin platform will incorporate historical weather data from 1951 onward to model how changing climate patterns may affect moisture levels and biological decay rates over the next 50 years, giving conservation teams a forward-looking tool rather than a reactive one.

Comparison of Xidi and Hongcun Heritage Features

Timeline and Key Partners

The project unfolds in three phases. Phase 1 (Q1 2025 – Q2 2025) focuses on ground-based 3D laser scanning of all accessible buildings, generating a point cloud of over 300 GB of raw spatial data per month for each village. Phase 2 (Q3 2025 – Q2 2026) overlays IoT sensor installation and photogrammetric drone flights to capture roof details and surrounding landscape topography, adding 500 GB per quarter. Phase 3 (Q3 2026 – Q4 2026) integrates all data into a unified visualization platform and conducts user acceptance testing with heritage authorities.

Partners include the Anhui Cultural Heritage Bureau as lead agency, Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture for technical design, and Tencent’s Smart Heritage Lab for cloud computing and AI analytics. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has designated the project as a national pilot for digital heritage management, with potential to scale the approach to an additional 23 historic villages in southern Anhui. A total of 80 million RMB in funding comes from a mix of provincial budget allocation (60%) and a special central government cultural heritage protection grant (40%).

The project also includes a public-facing component: by 2027, visitors will be able to access an augmented reality (AR) tour via their smartphones, overlaying historical reconstructions onto the current views of buildings — for instance, seeing a 17th-century wedding ceremony inside Xidi’s Hu’s Ancestral Hall or the original waterwheel mechanism at Hongcun’s South Lake Academy.

Implications for Cultural Heritage and Tourism

The digital twin will fundamentally alter how the villages are managed day-to-day. Conservation staff will receive real-time dashboards on their mobile devices, highlighting any structure where humidity exceeds 75% for more than 72 consecutive hours or where visitor density in a given lane exceeds 120 people per hour. These thresholds are based on studies showing that wood decay accelerates rapidly when moisture stays above that level for three days, and that foot traffic above that density causes micro-fractures in stone flooring.

Tourism operators will also benefit. Historical visitor data shows that 70% of Hongcun’s daily visitors arrive between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, creating congestion at the Moon Pond and main commercial street. The platform will suggest dynamic time-slot adjustments and alternative routing via digital signage and the official WeChat mini-program, spreading foot traffic more evenly throughout the day. Early simulations suggest this could reduce peak-hour crowd density by 35%, improving both visitor experience and structural preservation.

Longer term, the data set will become a baseline for measuring change over decades. When the next major restoration occurs — on a hall roof or a canal segment — engineers will compare pre- and post-work digital models to verify that alterations align with original dimensions and materials. This creates an auditable history of interventions, essential for maintaining UNESCO compliance and for training the next generation of Huizhou restoration craftsmen.

NEXT STEPS

1. Review the heritage investment landscape: Read our guide to Anhui cultural heritage funding programs for foreign-backed preservation projects.
2. Plan a site visit with technical context: Use this itinerary for a Huizhou villages tech-and-travel tour to see the digital twin installations firsthand.
3. Contact the project team: Reach out through the Anhui Heritage Partnership application page for collaboration or investment inquiries.

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