Located at the central axis of Beijing City, Qianmen Street is a famous pedestrian street for shopping and sightseeing, running from the Archery Tower of Qianmen in the north to the turning of Tiantan Park in the south. It is 840 meters in length and 21 meters in width. It is composed with buildings whose styles resemble the late Qing Dynasty. Qianmen Street has history of more than 570 years. It was called Zhengyangmen Street during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and finally got the present name in 1965.
During the Qing Dynasty, there were many specialized outlets on either side of it, such as a meat market, cloth market and jewelry market. And there were also many craftsman workshops, warehouses and theatres in the Hutongs nearby. Now Qianmen Street becomes an important night life place for locals. Qianmen Avenue starts from Qianmen (the Zhengyang Gate), which is the central front gate of inner city (downtown) of Beijing. Its end to the south is Yongdingmen (the Yongding Gate), the central front gate of outer city of Beijing. The avenue overlaps a lane of the central axis of Beijing, which is highly thought by architecture community as a miracle of city construction history.
Qianmen Avenue is the center of Nancheng (the South City). After Manchu entering Shanhaiguan in 1644 and taking control of Beijing, they inhabited in inner city, and forced local Han groups moving south outside of Qianmen. That is the area of Nancheng. People concentrated within a small area and business bloomed. Qianmen area became the commercial center of old Beijing. The avenue itself was prosperous, while those streets or lanes linking with it got profit from the association too. Qianmen Avenue has developed all the time. After renovation a few years ago, the avenue is now a scenic commercial region, showing the style of Dynasty Ming and Qing.
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