Objective  The concept of scenic area took shape in modern era. “Scenic area” was a vehicle for using traditional scenic resources to promote urban and regional development at that time, while nowadays, it also serves as the historical basis for the establishment of the contemporary scenic area system in China. Wuxi not only proposed the planning of suburban scenic areas in the early time, but also led and promoted the construction of the Taihu Lake National Park, constituting a typical case during the formation and development of the scenic area system in modern era. Therefore, it is necessary to review in detail the formation and development of the scenic area of Wuxi, and clarify the historical process, role and implications thereof.

Methods/process  Supported by relevant historical literature, this research selects and analyzes some important ideas and construction practices in the modern urban development of Wuxi. The research materials include relevant government documents, articles and news reports related to scenic resource surveys, urban zoning planning, landscape planning, and national park planning. The research reveals that in Wuxi, the formation and development of the concept of scenic area has gone through four periods before and after modern times.

Results/conclusion  Before modern times, after a long-term accumulation of landscape resources, Wuxi formed a number of scenic areas with local landscape characteristics. During this period, the framework for investigation and combing of landscape resources in Wuxi that started to took shape in Ming Dynasty, was gradually finalized, covering natural landscape, gardens, shrines, temples, etc. The second stage was the early years of the Republic of China. The local gentry in Wuxi, represented by Rong Desheng, advocated the use of landscape resources to promote urban modernization, and proposed the concept of building scenic areas in urban development. Later, under the background of opening up commercial districts in the 1920s, the construction of local scenic areas was further promoted, and the utilization of scenic area resources was raised to the strategic height of promoting urban prosperity. The third stage was after 1928 when Wuxi clarified the spatial scope and planning and construction content of urban scenic areas through preparing for the establishment of modern municipal administration system. Judging from the multiple plans formulated by the Wuxi Municipal Government then, Wuxi’s construction of scenic area was not a response to the “pastoral” concept in the construction of garden city, nor is it the same with the common concept of park in European and American urban planning. It was not just about building parks or incorporating green spaces into urban areas, but about using the gathering places of scenic areas in the suburbs to, through repairing historical sites and improving modern facilities, achieve the ideal of traditional landscape and human settlements that could only be realized in small-scale private gardens in the past. The fourth stage was the period of westward expansion in the 1930s, when the construction of the Taihu Lake National Park was further proposed from the perspective of landscape resource integration. The scenic area on the north bank of the Taihu Lake created during the modernization of Wuxi directly contributed to the initial construction practice of China’s “national park”. It can be concluded that under the background of urban modernization, Wuxi has proposed and perfected the concept of scenic area through corresponding planning and construction practices. This concept of using traditional scenic resources for urban development is very close to the concept of contemporary landscape heritage conservation. It not only provides an early ideological basis for the establishment of China’s contemporary scenic area system, but also implies that scenic areas are vulnerable to unfavorable factors such as adjustment in the overall layout of urban development and ineffective cross-regional collaboration.