Chongwenmen (;

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

: ; Möllendorff: šu be wesihulere duka) was a gate that was part of Beijing's

city wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

in what is now Dongcheng District. The gate stood in the southeastern part of Beijing's inner city, immediately south of the old

Beijing Legation Quarter The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Peking (Beijing), China where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In the Chinese language, the area is known as ''Dong Jiaomin Xiang'' (), which is the name of the ''hutong ...

. In the 1960s, the gate and much of the wall was torn down to make room for Beijing's second ring road. Today, Chongwenmen is marked by the intersection of Chongwenmen Nei (Inner) and Chongwenmen Wai (Outer) Street, which run north-south through the former gate, Chongwenmen East and Chongwenmen West Street, which run east-west where the wall stood, and Beijing Station West Street, a diagonal street, going northwest to the

Beijing railway station Beijing railway station (), or simply Beijing station (), is a passenger railway station in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The station is located just southeast of the city centre inside the Second Ring Road with Beijing Station Street to the nor ...

. Chongwenmen is a transport node in Beijing. Chongwenmen Station is an

interchange station An interchange station or a transfer station is a train station for more than one railway route in a public transport system that allows passengers to change from one route to another, often without having to leave a station or pay an additio ...

on Lines 2 and 5 of the

Beijing Subway The Beijing Subway is the rapid transit system of Beijing Municipality that consists of 25 lines including 20 rapid transit lines, two airport rail links, one maglev line and 2 light rail lines, and 463 stations. The rail network extends ...

Chongwen District Chongwen District () is a former district of Beijing, located relatively southeast to the city center (Tiananmen), and was situated between Yongdingmen and Qianmen. It spanned an area of . It bordered Dongcheng District to the north, Fengtai Distr ...

, an administrative division of the city from 1952 to 2010 and now folded into Dongcheng District, was named after Chongwenmen. Chongwenmen 1

History

During the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fif ...

, the gate was called Wenmingmen (文明門). Because the residence of the Mongol prince Hada was located close by, the gate was also popularly known as Hadamen (traditional 哈達門, simplified 哈大門) or Hademen (traditional 哈德門, simplified 哈德门).(Chinese
北京历史文化—崇文门
2013-05-03 The name Hademen survived well into the twentieth century, and was even the name of a popular

cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...

brand. The Hademen Hotel now overlooks where the gate once stood. To the east of Chongwenmen, the

Ming City Wall Relics Park The Beijing Ming City Wall Ruins Park () is a park in Beijing with the longest and best preserved section of the city's Ming Dynasty city wall. The park is located from the city center and extends east from Chongwenmen to Dongbianmen and then ...

has the best preserved remaining section of Beijing's Ming city wall.

Transport

Chongwenmen is served by Chongwenmen Station on Line 2 and Line 5 of the

. It is also served by numerous

Beijing Bus Public bus service in Beijing is the among the most extensive, widely used and affordable form of public transportation in urban and suburban districts of the city. In 2015, the entire network consisted of 876 routes with a fleet of 24,347 bus ...

routes.

References

{{coord, 39.8982, N, 116.4176, E, source:wikidata, display=title Dongcheng District, Beijing Gates of Beijing Neighbourhoods of Beijing Road transport in Beijing