Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size by the Eastern Han dynasty, mostly due to emigration from northern China.

[6] From the 10th century onwards, it has been an important economic, cultural, and commercial center,[7] as well as the largest non-capital city in the world, until it was overtaken by Shanghai.

By the Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou, local Baiyue tribes named the Gou Wu are recorded living in the area which would become the modern city of Suzhou.

The city was originally laid out according to a symbolic three-by-three grid of nine squares, with the royal palace occupying the central position.

Following the Qin Empire's conquest of the area in 222 BC, it was made the capital of Kuaiji Commandery, including lands stretching from the south bank of the Yangtze to the unconquered interior of Minyue in southern Zhejiang.

[30] When the shipwrecked Korean official Choe Bu had a chance to see much of Eastern China from Zhejiang to Liaoning on his way home in 1488, he described Suzhou in his travel report as exceeding every other city.

[31] Under the Ming, Suzhou was a prosperous center of the Nanzhili area controlled by the secondary capital at Nanjing; scholar-officials constructed the area's most famous private gardens during this period in a "Jiangnan style" copied at the time by Shanghai's Yu Garden and later by parts of the empress dowager Cixi's Summer Palace.

Many of its former buildings and gardens were "almost... a heap of ruins"[21] by the time of their recovery by Charles Gordon's Ever-Victorious Army in November 1863.

Just prior to World War I, there were 7000 silk looms in operation, as well as a cotton mill and a large trade in rice.

[22] As late as the early 20th century, much of the city consisted of islands connected by rivers, creeks, and canals to the surrounding countryside.

[45] Boat tours are offered on the waterways of this city that was dubbed the "Venice of the East" by Marco Polo because of its criss-crossing canals and stone bridges.

There was originally a single-story house with three rooms just like a writing brush holder with the shadows of the two pagodas reclining on its roof at sunset.

To the east of the pagoda is a square five-story bell building built in the Ming dynasty which appears exactly like a thick ink stick.

Once the hospital is unveiled, Washington University doctors in St. Louis will be able to provide long-distance health-care services to patients in China through a telemedicine program.

Suzhou's economy is based primarily on its large manufacturing sector—China's first largest(from 2020)—including iron and steel, IT and electronic equipment, and textile products.

The city's service sector is notably well-developed, primarily owing to tourism, which brought in a total of RMB 152 billion of revenue in 2013.

[59] The city is also one of China's foremost destinations for foreign investment, based on its relative proximity to Shanghai and comparatively low operating costs.

Included among these measures is a preferential tax policy for limited partnership venture capital enterprises in the Suzhou Industrial Park.

[60] Traditional handicrafts Suzhou has a long history of reeling silkworms and has always been an important base for silk production in China.

The Suzhou Industrial Park Export Processing Zone was approved to be established by the government in April 2000, with a planning area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi).

The 13,000 seat Suzhou Industrial Park Sports Arena was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

It takes only 25 minutes to reach Shanghai railway station on the fastest G-series trains and less than 1 hour to Nanjing.

In 2005, the Suzhou Outer Ring was completed, linking the peripheral county-level cities of Taicang, Kunshan, and Changshu.

[citation needed] The Suzhou BRT, a 25-kilometer (16 mi)-long bus rapid transit system opened in 2008, operates 5 lines using elevated busways and bus-only lanes throughout the city.

Lu Xun (陆逊) (183–245) military general and politician of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms era, most famous for his defeat of Liu Bei in the Battle of Xiaoting.

[77] I. M. Pei (贝聿铭) (1917–2019) One of the best architects in China history, being recognised as the 'last master of high modernist architecture',[78] famous for his design of Louvre Pyramid, Hong Kong Bank of China tower, Singapore OCBC Centre, East Building of National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Germany Historical Museum, etc.

One of the key figure in China's nuclear weapons development and a founding father of the Two Bombs, One Satellite project.

Tsung-Dao Lee (李政道) (1926–2024) Physicist, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957 at the age of 30, for his work on the violation of the parity law in weak interactions.

[80] Meng Jianzhu (孟建柱) (1947–) Politician, former member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission aDirect-administered municipalities.

5The claimed province of Taiwan no longer have any internal division announced by Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC, due to lack of actual jurisdiction.