Xiaogongyuan Historic Port District 小公园开埠区

About Xiaogongyuan Historic Port District

Shantou was opened as a treaty port in 1860, becoming the third place in China and the second in Guangdong to have a customs house established, and by the 1930s and 1940s it was the largest city in Guangdong after Guangzhou. The commercial quarter that grew up around the harbour is the area now called Xiaogongyuan. Its street plan is unusual: roads radiate outward in a fan from the central pavilion, among them Anping Road, Shengping Road and Guoping Road, together with the group of streets locally known as 'si yong yi shengping'. Lining them are qilou, arcade buildings whose upper floors are carried over the pavement on columns so that the walkway beneath is sheltered from sun and rain, built in a mixture of Chinese and Western forms. Much of the money behind them came from overseas Chinese, whose capital is reckoned to have supplied around two thirds of the investment going into the city's construction in that period.

The quarter has been repaired rather than rebuilt wholesale. A pilot conservation project began in August 2016, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Pavilion was reconstructed to its original dimensions from October of that year, and the first phase of wider district repair followed in March 2017. The pavilion was put back using more than two thousand pieces of Burmese teak, joined by mortise and tenon without iron nails and following surviving Republican-era drawings. Xiaogongyuan has since been designated a provincial historic and cultural district of Guangdong.

What to look for

• The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Pavilion at the hub of the quarter, first built in 1934 and reconstructed from 2016 in Burmese teak using mortise-and-tenon joinery
• The fan-shaped radial street pattern spreading from the pavilion along Anping Road, Shengping Road and Guoping Road
• The qilou arcades themselves, with living floors carried on columns above a covered pavement
• The seven-storey former department store building, which began in 1932 as the Nansheng Company, funded by Li Baihuan and other overseas Chinese from Meixian
• The well-known 'si yong yi shengping' group of streets in the old commercial district

Location & getting there

Getting to Xiaogongyuan Historic Port District

Choose a precise starting address and return transport stop. Access to individual buildings, performances or viewing platforms is separate from access to public streets.

• Search for 小公园开埠区 with 汕头市 and 金平区.