The Retreat and Reflection Garden is located 234 Xinzheng Street, Tongli Town, Wujing District, Suzhou. It was listed as National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the State Council in 2001, and in 2000, it was recorded on the list of the world heritage by UESCO.
The Retreat and Reflection Garden belongs to the private gardens. It covers an area of 5, 674 square meters, with building area of 2, 622 square meters. The design of this garden is innovative in that it uses an east–west axis as the main axis as opposed to the traditional north–south axis. The garden is divided into an eastern residential area that comprises an inner and an outer house, and a western main garden court that comprises the middle and the inner garden. The garden is compact, and can be divided or combined. Professor Chen Congzhou, a famous Chinese Ancient Architecture Researcher and Garden Art Historian, one summarized that the Retreat and Reflection Garden belongs to a Floating-on-Water Garden, which is unique in all the refined gardens in south of the Yangtze River. Although the garden is small and nearly half of the area is water, one can see vistas of four seasons and structures related to traditional Chinese arts. The layout of buildings uses the near-the-water style of placing the buildings back from the water’s edge and keeping the water level high. This part of the garden is named "The Garden Floating on Water."