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Orientation
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For a city of four million people, Guangzhou is compact and easy to navigate. It was originally divided up into an inner heart, enclosed by walls and sectioned into old and new quarters, with the surrounding district outside. The walls came down in the 1920s, but it is this area, bounded south by the Pearl River and north by
Huanshi Lu
, and cut by four arterial roads -
Zhongshan
and
Dongfeng
running east-west and
Jiefang
and
Renmin
running north-south - that constitutes downtown Guangzhou today. The longer streets are divided up into north, south, east, west and central sections, with the exception of Zhongshan Lu, whose segments are numbered.
North of Dongfeng Lu, tall buildings and wide boulevards are dwarfed by the city's two major parks,
Yuexiu
and
Liuhua
. South, between Dongfeng Lu and the river, the main roads are noticeably narrower, with flyovers taking the traffic, and it's here that you'll find most of the city's historical monuments. Down on the southwestern
waterfront
is Guangzhou's busiest corner, with the net of streets north of
Liuersan Lu
forming a particularly crowded and compelling
market district
, and
Shamian Island
, the quiet nineteenth-century foreigners' quarter, lying across a canal. Over on the other side of the Pearl River from here is
Honan
, a seedy hotspot during the 1930s; while east across the city,
Tianhe
is a hugely scaled, modern satellite suburb. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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China,
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