Covering an area of 2.3 hectares, the Liuyuan Garden is the best preserved among all the Suzhou gardens. It is also one of the four most famous gardens in China.Situated outside the Cang Gate of Suzhou city, the garden was built in 1583 of by Xu Taishi, a bureaucrat of the Ming court, as his private residence. In 1961, the garden was listed as a key national cultural relic under state protection.[Photo/china.org.cn]