Xisi () literally, the "Western Four" or the "Western Quadrangle", is the name of an intersection and surrounding neighborhood in

Xicheng District Xicheng () is a district of the city of Beijing. Its cover the western half of the old city (largely inside the 2nd Ring Road; the eastern half is Dongcheng District, Beijing, Dongcheng District), and has 1,106,214 inhabitants (2020 Census). It ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. Xisi, at the intersection of what is now Xisi Avenue and Fuchengmen Inner Avenue, dates to the

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

and was named after the four ''

paifang A ''paifang'', also known as a ''pailou'', is a traditional style of Chinese architecture, often used in arch or gateway structures. Etymology The word ''paifang'' ( zh, c=牌坊, p=páifāng) was originally a collective term for the top two le ...

s'', Chinese sign gates, that marked the location. The intersection was known as the Western Four Sign Gates or "Western Four" for short. To the east, in Dongcheng District, there was another intersection with four sign gates called ''Dongsi'' or the Eastern Four.(Chinese
"“东单”“西单”“东四”“西四” 名称的来历"
2009-04-15 The sign gates at Xisi were removed in 1950s but the location name remains. Today, the Xisi Station on Line 4 of the

Beijing Subway The Beijing Subway is the rapid transit system of Beijing Direct-controlled municipality, Municipality that consists of 29 lines including 24 rapid transit lines, two airport rail links, one maglev line and two light rail, light rail tram line ...

is located underneath the intersection.

References

{{coord, 39.9230, N, 116.3742, E, source:wikidata, display=title Road transport in Beijing Xicheng District

See also

References