Chang'an District 长安区

History

The district government calls Chang'an the "east gate" of the provincial capital. Before 1949 the land held only a few villages, cart inns and smithies; the People's Liberation Army took Shijiazhuang on 12 November 1947, and the district was created in 1956. It is named after Chang'an Road (长安路), which runs east to west through its middle, and the name carries the sense of lasting peace.

The Dongyuan ancient city site (东垣古城遗址) lies at the villages of Donggucheng and Xigucheng (东古城、西古城) in Gaoying town (高营镇). Dongyuan was an important town of the Warring States kingdom of Zhongshan (中山国) and later of Zhao, became Dongyuan county under the Qin, and was made the Zhending kingdom (真定国) by Emperor Wu of Han. From the early Jin it was the seat of Changshan commandery (常山郡) until the seat moved north of the Hutuo early in the Tang. It has been a national protected site since 2013.

What to see

Hebei Museum (河北博物院), on Culture Square, is the provincial museum and a national first-grade museum. It began in 1953 in the Ancient Lotus Pond (古莲花池) garden in Baoding and moved to Shijiazhuang in 1982; after rebuilding and extension it opened as Hebei Museum on 9 June 2014. Its north hall, built in 1968 with a colonnade modelled on the Great Hall of the People, is itself a provincial protected site. The collection is strongest in finds from the Mancheng Han tombs (满城汉墓), porcelain from Hebei's four great ancient kilns, Yuan blue-and-white and Buddhist stone sculpture, and one of its permanent galleries is devoted to Quyang (曲阳) stone carving.

Chang'an Park (长安公园) opened in 1958 as Liberation Park and took its present name in 1980. A lake fills its west side, its southern part is People's Square, and its northwest corner holds the tomb of Wu Luzhen (吴禄贞墓), a general of the 1911 revolution, marked by three white marble tomb pagodas.

Other provincial protected sites are the paired Russian-style office buildings of the North China Pharmaceutical Factory (华北制药厂办公楼) on Heping East Road, built under the first Five-Year Plan, and a 2.5-metre Northern Qi stone Buddha at Xingning Temple (兴宁寺) in Baifo (白佛). Rose Park (月季公园), on the northern Second Ring Road, grows more than 200 rose varieties.

Highlights

• Hebei Museum 河北博物院: Provincial museum and national first-grade museum, strong in Mancheng Han tomb finds and Hebei kiln porcelain.
• Dongyuan Ancient City Site 东垣古城遗址: Warring States to Tang city site in Gaoying town; national protected site since 2013.
• Chang'an Park 长安公园: Park opened in 1958, with a lake and the tomb of the 1911 revolutionary general Wu Luzhen.
• North China Pharmaceutical Factory office buildings 华北制药厂办公楼: Russian-style office pair from the first Five-Year Plan; provincial protected site since 2008.