Suiyang District 睢阳区

History

The district government presents Suiyang as the homeland of the Shang people and the site of the first Shang capital. It also places here Suiren (燧人氏), first of the legendary Three Sovereigns, who is said to have invented making fire by drilling wood, and names Zhuanxu (颛顼), Di Ku (帝喾), Tang of Shang (商汤) and Weizi (微子) among the rulers who made their capitals in the area. Because the Yellow River repeatedly broke its banks, six earlier cities lie stacked beneath the present one, among them the Zhou-era capital of the state of Song, the Suiyang city of the Qin–Han and Sui–Tang periods and the Song-dynasty Southern Capital of Yingtian (应天府).

What to see

Shangqiu Ancient City was completed in 1511. An outer earth embankment is round and the brick wall inside is square, a plan the district compares to a round coin with a square hole. The wall runs 4.35 kilometres, and the moat-lake around it covers 333.3 hectares. Each of the four gates had a barbican with an angled outer gate, and the east and west gates are offset by a street. The 1.13-square-kilometre inner city is cut by 93 streets into a chessboard of blocks lined with old courtyard houses, and Zhongshan Street (中山大街), 1,200 metres long, runs north–south between Gongchen Gate (拱辰门) and Gongyang Gate (拱阳门) as a shopping street in Ming–Qing style.

The Yingtian Academy (应天书院), the Northern Song imperial academy, is ranked by the district government as first of China's four great academies. The Ebotai (阏伯台) terrace, which it describes as the oldest surviving observatory in China, is dated to more than 4,500 years ago. The Nanguan wharf site on the Grand Canal (大运河商丘南关码头遗址) is part of the Grand Canal World Heritage listing. The district has four national and 13 provincial protected sites.

Getting oriented

Suiyang is a central district of urban Shangqiu, where the Zhengzhou–Xuzhou, Shangqiu–Hefei–Hangzhou and Beijing–Xiong'an–Shangqiu high-speed lines meet the Longhai and Beijing–Kowloon railways and National Highways 105 and 310.

Highlights

• Shangqiu Ancient City 商丘古城: Walled town completed in 1511, round outer embankment and square wall inside a 333-hectare moat-lake.
• Yingtian Academy 应天书院: Northern Song imperial academy, ranked first of China's four great academies by the district government.
• Ebotai 阏伯台: Terrace described as China's oldest surviving observatory, over 4,500 years old.
• Zhongshan Street 中山大街: 1,200-metre Ming–Qing style shopping street on the old city's north–south axis.
• Nanguan wharf site 大运河商丘南关码头遗址: Grand Canal wharf site included in the World Heritage listing.