“Eight scenic spots” was conventional scenery in ancient China, and also historical reflect of humanistic culture. It was firstly recorded in Shen Kuo’s “Mengxi Bitan- painting and calligraphy” of Dong Dynasty which was about 900 years ago.

From then on, a name card of local scenery which was restricted in the total amount of eight became popular in China. People kept creating some poems to show off their local eight scenic spots. It greatly helped to accumulate abundant cultural heritages and the eight scenic sports became irreplaceable. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, the western learning was introduced into China, “eight scenic spots” was considered as “scenery’s eight-part essay” and faded out in the history. After the foundation of People’s Republic of China, because of culture revolution and new round of city construction, many “eight scenic spots” were destroyed thoroughly and the culture of “eight scenic spots” was declined. But currently, many cities re-recognized that the “eight scenic spots” is with some important values as accumulating cultural fortunes, protecting cultural heritages, forming city landmarks and good tourism products, and etc., so they started to re-evaluate it. Macau was the first city which restarted the evaluation of “eight scenic spots”. In 1995, 8 communities of Macau selected 8 scenic spots which can best show the features of Macau from the 40 listed spots.

On August 23, 2001, 620,000 citizens of Guangzhou city voted out eight scenic spots from 30 candidates.

On September 7, 2012, Jinan city selected out its eight scenic spots.

According to the data, more than 300 cities selected out their eight new scenic spots followed the naming rule of “four letters and eight sentences” of ancient eight scenic spots.