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STREET STORIES - ZHONGSHAN ROAD

Picture source: Tales of Old Shanghai

1.      There is not just one Zhongshan Road in China. Today, there are 7 Zhongshan roads in different Middle Kingdom cities .These include  Shanghai , Nanjing, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shenyang, Hangzhou and Haikou in Hainan. Beijing used to have one as well – at the northern end of Tiananmen Square. After the reconstruction of the square, it became a section of the Chang’an avenue.

Picture source: Shanghai postcards from 1930s
Picture source:beibaotu.com; Zhongshan Road in Xiamen

2.      Zhongshan road is often one of the city’s principal roads, therefore in most cases it is long and divided into numbered sections.

Picture source:Shanghai Squared; Zhongshan Road in Hangzhou

3.      The name ‘Zhongshan Road’   usually honors Sun Yat- sen, known in Chinese as ‘Sun – Zhongshan’, who gained recognition as ‘The Father of Modern China” (He was the leader of the Republican Revolution of the early 20th century and his Kuomintang party reunified China in 1928).

Picture soiurce:People's World

4.      Zhongshan Roads ‘survived’ the Cultural Revolution’s initiative to rid all the streets of the political leaders’ names. Not even Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping share the ‘privilege’ of commemoration in road names.

Picture source: Best China News; Zhongshan Road in Shenyang

5.  Zhongshan roads are also ubiquitous on the island of Taiwan. The practice of naming streets and even parks after Sun-Yatsen became a ‘fad’ after the Republic of China government took over Taiwan at the end of World War II.

Picture source:Alarmy; Zhongshan Road in Taipei

6.      Zhongshan Road in Shanghai was built in 1930s in order to prevent the expansion of the foreign concessions and to connect the three Chinese urban areas, Nanshi, Zhabei, and Jiangwan.

Picture source:monovision.com

7.      Shanghai’s  Zhongshan road marks the boundary of the traditional urban area and stretches around the whole city. It is divided into numerous sections and identified by a direction and a number.

Picture source: Tales of Old Shanghai

8.      Before 1840s it Zhongshan road was merely a muddy, narrow lane with tall reeds. After Shanghai was established as the trading port in 1846, the street was paved and the riverside was reinforced. What followed, was the construction of commercial which brought the urban  landscape we are familiar with today.

Picture source:cnn.com

9.      Obviously, the top legendary and world famous part of Zhongshan road is Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu – East Zhongshan Road Number 1, aka The Bund – the symbol of Shanghai for hundreds of years.

Picture source:Tales of Old Shanghai

10.      Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu  houses 52 historical buildings of various architectural styles.         However, we will tell you more about it in another post!

Picture source: Shutter stock
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