Bianhe Street 汴河街

About Bianhe Street

The street occupies 30 mu and runs for more than 320 metres, with a total floor area of 18,000 square metres. It reaches Yueyang Tower at its northern end and faces Dongting Lake to the west, while across the road stands the Yuezhou Confucian Temple, a national key cultural relic protection unit. The layout is a central inner street flanked by outer streets on the east and west, built uniformly with open fronts and divided into four commercial blocks holding more than 150 shop units. The buildings are entirely modern work in a traditional Chinese idiom, and the street carries cultural reliefs including a panel of the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea.

Bianhe Street is one component of the Yueyang Tower scenic area, which covers 670 mu and is divided between a closed zone managed for heritage protection and an open public leisure zone. Yueyang Tower itself is a national key cultural relic protection unit and part of the Yueyang Tower and Dongting Lake national key scenic area; the wider site was expanded in 2007, when a number of features were restored or newly built. Other elements of the same scenic area include a mock-antique city wall up to 16 metres high and 1,200 metres long, laid with more than 400,000 grey bricks gathered from eight cities across six provinces.

What to look for

• The open-fronted shopfronts of the inner and outer streets, four commercial blocks holding more than 150 units
• The cultural reliefs set into the street, including the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea
• The Yuezhou Confucian Temple directly across the road, a national key cultural relic protection unit
• The view towards Dongting Lake on the west side and Yueyang Tower at the northern end

Location & getting there

Getting to Bianhe Street

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 汴河街 with 岳阳市 and 岳阳楼区.