Qianmen Street

Qianmen Dajie runs eight hundred metres south from the Zhengyangmen gate and has been the main trading axis of the city since the Ming era. The oldest Beijing firms kept their shops here, and many of them still trade under the same signs. For the Olympics of 2008 the street was cleared of cars, its facades restored in the style of the late Qing, and a tourist tram brought back onto rails laid down the middle of the roadway. West from Qianmen runs the narrow lane of Dashilan with its old pharmacies and silk shops.

On the map