Jingsan Road Old Commercial Port 经三路老商埠

About Jingsan Road Old Commercial Port

The Jiaoji railway between Qingdao and Jinan was completed in 1904, and in the same year Jinan, together with Zhoucun and Weixian further along the line, opened a commercial port on its own initiative rather than under treaty compulsion; the municipal government treats this as the start of the city's modernisation and as the first such move by a large inland Chinese city. The Qing authorities marked out a zone beyond the western suburb, about five li across from east to west and less than three li from north to south. Because weaving was a strong local trade at the time, the planners borrowed the old textile terms for the long and short threads: east-west streets were called jing, or warp, and numbered southwards from the railway, while north-south streets were called wei, or weft, and numbered westwards from Shiwangdian, meeting the jing roads at right angles. The quarter filled in slowly, with only seven streets by 1916, and by 1921 it had spread west as far as Weishi Road and south as far as Jingqi Road.

By the 1930s the blocks between Jinger and Jingsan roads and between Weier and Weisi roads had become the trading heart of the district, with the Daguanyuan market to the south, the railway station to the north, the Xinshichang market to the east and Wanzixiang and Zhongshan Park to the west, and with cinemas, theatres and old trading houses standing close together; Jingsan and Jingwu roads still run between their original end points. Several protected buildings sit on Jingsan Road itself. The former Japanese consulate-general at number 240 was announced as a provincial cultural heritage protection unit in 2013; the same address carries a municipal listing, made in 1979, as the place commemorating Zhou Enlai's 1946 inspection of the Jinan executive group of the Beiping Military Mediation Executive Department, and the south-east block of the Jinan Hotel there is a registered heritage item. One of the commercial district's substation buildings, a municipal protection unit since 2013, stands at the south-east corner of the Jingsan and Weiqi crossing, and one street south the site of the May Third Incident at 370 Jingsi Road entered the national register of key cultural heritage protection units in 2019. The Jinan Commercial Port Opening Museum, in the same quarter, takes the 1904 opening as its thread across six themed zones and holds a complete map of the old commercial-port boundary.

What to look for

• The former Japanese consulate-general at 240 Jingsan Road, a provincial cultural heritage protection unit announced in 2013
• The memorial listing at the same address for Zhou Enlai's 1946 inspection of the Jinan executive group of the Beiping Military Mediation Executive Department, protected at municipal level since 1979
• The commercial-district substation building at the south-east corner of the Jingsan and Weiqi road crossing
• The six themed display zones of the Jinan Commercial Port Opening Museum and its map of the commercial-port boundary
• The site of the May Third Incident at 370 Jingsi Road, one warp road to the south, listed nationally in 2019

Location & getting there

Getting to Jingsan Road Old Commercial Port

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 经三路老商埠 with 济南市 and 市中区／槐荫区.