10 Yuan Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City

Liangzhu was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2019, the inscription coming after decades of Chinese archaeological lobbying and just months before this coin's release. The site — a Neolithic city near Hangzhou occupied roughly 5,300 to 4,300 years ago — had long been central to arguments that Chinese civilization predates the Yellow River cultures traditionally credited as its origin point. The coin's issue followed directly from that political and scholarly moment.

Liangzhu jade artifacts recovered from the site show evidence of a hydraulic engineering system that managed water across an area of nearly 100 square kilometers.