Clas­si­cal Chi­nese gar­den design, which seeks to recre­ate nat­ur­al land­scapes in minia­ture, is nowhere bet­ter illus­trat­ed than in the nine gar­dens in the his­toric city of Suzhou. They are gen­er­al­ly acknowl­edged to be mas­ter­pieces of the genre. Dat­ing from the 11th-19th cen­tu­ry, the gar­dens reflect the pro­found meta­phys­i­cal impor­tance of nat­ur­al beau­ty in Chi­nese cul­ture in their metic­u­lous design.