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Four principles of arrangement

• Grade first, but grade says one thing only: look at national protected sites first, then provincial, then municipal. Grade is the basis for screening historical value, not a guarantee of what you meet on the ground. Protected status, the condition of the building, whether it opens at all and whether there is any interpretation are four different questions; grade certifies only the first. The other three vary site by site — some national sites are a single gatehouse, some provincial ones are fully laid out with guides. Each sub-page here says what to look at, whether it opens and what to watch for; grade only fixes the order, and whether a place is worth going depends on those three lines.
• Geography sets the order: measured centre to centre by road, Shantou to Chaozhou is 40 km, Shantou to Jieyang 47 km and Chaozhou to Jieyang 30 km — not straight-line distances. So Chaozhou and Jieyang are the closest pair, Shantou sits central and south, and any two of the three are within an hour’s drive. Two cities in a day is feasible; three is a rush. Arrange one district a day, not many stops a day.
• Entries come second: every stop carries a link to its entry on this site. Reading the entry after seeing the thing works better than reading it first.
• Every route gives five things: where it starts and ends, how you go (which legs cannot be walked), how the time splits, main line and optional stops, and what to cut when plans break. Each of the six tiers is a page laid out on those five; judge by those five lines, not by the tier’s name.

Estimating time

The “about so many hours” on each page is this site’s planning estimate, not official data. Three things set it: whether the carving needs close reading (Jilue Huang Hall, taken piece by piece, is more than two hours); whether a festival is on (during the first-month god parades, parts of the old city fill with crowds); and whether queuing and interpretation are included.

Rough scale: for the shape of a building, one to one and a half hours a stop; for carving and ornament, two hours or more; for photographs, no estimate is possible.

A few cautions

One: grade is a sieve, not an advertisement. National status recognises historical value, not what you will meet on the ground — condition, access and interpretation differ at every site. Nor is grade a ranking of recommendations.

Two: time follows your own interest. Someone who loves carving can spend half a day in one hall; for a walk through, an hour will do.

Three: three days over three cities shows the frame. For detail, each city is worth a week — not a plea to stay longer, but a caution against blaming yourself for not seeing everything.

Why this information can be trusted, and how long it lasts

Two separate questions: what a piece of content rests on, and how fast it expires. The first decides whether to trust it; the second decides when to check again.

The evidence threshold, four kinds of content, four lines:

Kind of information	What this site writes it on
Historical and cultural fact	Sources, gazetteers, government or heritage bodies first; where disputed, both accounts are given and no single answer is forced
Transport, fares, opening hours	Operator or official notices first, each line marked with the date checked; where nothing can be found, it says so rather than borrowing from a guide
Journey times and difficulty	This site’s estimate, labelled as such, with its conditions: stamina, season, children
Visitor reviews and experience	Platform, sample size, collection date and limits stated; below the threshold, shown without a conclusion

Classed by how fast they go out of date. Each row records its source, the date checked, the scope it applies to and the condition for re-checking. The revision date at the top of a page says only when that page last changed; it does not mean every line was re-checked that day. To judge whether a line still holds, read its own row.

Fast-changing　the official word of the day governs

Item	Source and date checked	Applies to	Re-check when
Vehicle booking to enter Nan ao	Nan ao county government office《reply to proposal 20260342 of the municipal CPPCC》 (Nanfubanhan [2026] No. 154, 2026-07-09)checked 19 Oct	private cars driving onto the island. In force since 1 May 2026: relaxed off-peak, strict at peak, no booking no entry	re-check bands and quotas after each holiday notice; when the release rule (7 days ahead／14 days for hotels) changes
Guangji Bridge hours, tickets and pontoon boats	Chaozhou notices of the Guangji Bridge office and the bridgeheadchecked 19 Oct	Boarding hours, sales stop, boarding stop and pontoons apart are four separate moments; summer and winter schedules are issued separately	read the bridgehead notice on the day; when the seasonal schedule changes
Rail departures and connections at Chaoshan station	12306 and station noticeschecked 19 Oct	Arrival and departure times and the last train; excludes extras, additions and temporary cancellations	one day before travel; after each seasonal timetable
City buses, ferries and fares	published by the Shantou transport bureau and the bus and ferry operatorschecked 19 Oct	Regular routes; holidays bring diversions, extra runs and suspended ferries	once a quarter; a week before long holidays
Site hours and temporary closures	each site’s notice of the daychecked 19 Oct	Opening and closing, last admission, whether separate booking is needed	on the day

These the site cannot give in real time and should not pretend to. The table records when a line was checked, not that it is always right.

Periodic　updated only when official figures appear; otherwise the old figure stays, with its date

Item	Source and date checked	Applies to	Re-check when
Box office and admissions for Letters to Grandma	Maoyan and Dengta public datachecked, figures to 30 Sep 2026	covers only up to that date; later changes are not tracked here	when a new official notice appears; otherwise the number and date above stand
Visitor review samples	public reviews on Ctrip, Dianping and similarchecked Oct 2026	only a reference for what most people say; below 30 reviews at one place, no count is drawn	when the sample doubles, or criticism clusters
Holiday visitor numbers and tourism data	published by the culture and tourism authoritieschecked, 2026 published figures	for judging crowding and queues, not for forecasting next year	when new figures follow each holiday
Progress on the East Guangdong intercity	provincial development commission and railway sourceschecked Oct 2026	always written as opening date to be confirmed, never a projected date	when an opening date is published

Slow-moving　unchanged for years; moves only when a list or a source changes

Item	Source and date checked	Applies to	Re-check when
National and provincial protected lists and batches	batches published by the State Council and Guangdongchecked 19 Oct 2026	Chaozhou 9, Shantou 6, Jieyang 4; Chen Cihong Residence is provincial, not national	when a new batch is published
Administrative history, gazetteers and quoted sources	the original Chaozhou gazetteer and the Gujin Tushu Jichengchecked 19 Oct 2026	the Qing nine-county frame; Dabu and Fengshun are now in Meizhou and marked as in-prefecture comparisons	when a new critical edition appears
Distances and locations	measured on maps, centre to centre by roadchecked 19 Oct 2026	not straight-line: Shantou to Chaozhou 40 km, Shantou to Jieyang 47 km, Chaozhou to Jieyang 30 km	when roads or administrative boundaries change
Journey times and effort grades	this site’s planning estimates, not official datachecked Oct 2026	each line states the three premises: stamina, season, children	when reader feedback shows a systematic bias

Change one dynamic datum and you change only that row’s check date, adding a line to the revision log. Do not push every other date forward because one line moved. Where no source can be found, write not verified rather than borrow a date from another guide.

At the end of each quarter, run through the whole fast-changing column — departures, fares, hours, booking rules; once a year, the periodic column; the slow column moves only when a list or a source changes. Click every external link each quarter, replacing dead ones with official archives and logging the change.

Stops, entries and features are three layers: this page says how to arrange, Entries says what a thing is, and a feature says why it is worth seeing (the Jieyang old city, Letters to Grandma, What to eat in Shantou). Coming back to the entry after seeing the thing works better than reading first.

Consistency across pages　Where one fact appears on several pages, these six must agree. Any disagreement means one page has not kept up:

Item	Where it appears	What agreement means
Number of days	the tier table on the index, each tier page’s title and opening, the navigation	days and tier name agree; no four-day claim on a three-day page
Default base	the index tier table and each tier’s fact card	nights and city identical in wording
Cross-city legs	the index tier table and each tier’s fact card	same count and order, on one definition: estimated from the default base, excluding transfers in and out of Chaoshan
Site facts	sight pages, city pages, tier pages	hours and booking rules from the same source on the same date; no page saying booking needed while another is silent
Film feature	the film page, the three-day page, the index	same number of locations and same names; box office always labelled with its cut-off date
Source dates	the sources section of each page, and this ledger	one datum carries the same check date everywhere; change it once and change it everywhere

Change one thing and run all six together. Publish with only one page updated and readers will eventually meet two versions, then trust neither.

Sources

Distances: Shantou to Chaozhou 40 km, Shantou to Jieyang 47 km, Chaozhou to Jieyang 30 km, centre to centre by road, measured on maps, not straight-line.

Times: all are this site’s planning estimates, not official data; the conditions (stamina, season, children) are stated in the text.

Evidence threshold and ledger: rules set by this site, matching the labels on each page; live numbers only official sources get right, and the channels are in the section above.

Heritage grades and batches: as published by the State Council; lists and boundaries are not changed on the strength of news reports. Checked 19 October 2026.

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