Jiangmen: Between Arcades and City History

Jiangmen can be explored through several distinct facets: historic commercial streets and arcades, sites connected with railway and customs history, an exhibition on the city’s history, and East Lake Park. The subjects range from the origins of the urban area to a park with a designated water area. To plan your trip, start by choosing the focus that interests you most. This lets you search for hotels in Jiangmen with a clear idea of which aspects of the city are relevant to you.

Arcades and the Origins of the Urban Area

Changdi Scenic Street is a 0.8-kilometer-long historic street in Jiangmen’s old commercial district. Several hundred arcade buildings line the street, combining Chinese and Western architectural elements. Changdi is notable both for its historic commercial setting and for the design of its buildings. This offers a different perspective from that of a single landmark: the street itself and its many arcades are part of what defines the place.

Xuding Old Street is considered the origin of Jiangmen’s urban area. “Jijishi” and “Shuibu Tou” make up its central area and are also regarded as the city’s starting point. The two streets can therefore be distinguished by their different historical associations: Changdi is linked to the old commercial district and its arcades, while Xuding is linked to the origins of the urban area. If you want to organize the city’s history by theme, the distinction between street architecture and the origins of the urban area offers a practical guide.

Museum and Historical Periods

The Longdi branch of the Jiangmen Museum is located in Pengjiang District, in two arcade buildings that are each a hundred years old, at numbers 234 and 235 Dongdi Street. The permanent exhibition “烟火长堤——江门商埠的市井记忆” (The Bustle of Longdi: Everyday Memories of Jiangmen’s Commercial Port) covers more than 600 years of history in six chapters. The museum location therefore links a historical setting with an exhibition whose historical scope reaches further back. To understand each aspect, you can distinguish between the buildings, which describe where the branch is located, and the exhibition, which sets the thematic and chronological framework for its presentation.

Railway, Customs, and Commercial Port History

The ruins of North Street Station on the Xinning Railway are the only station site on this railway that remains relatively intact today. This site represents the railway aspect among the historic locations, while Jiangmen Customs focuses on customs administration. Its ruins were built in 1904 in the Beijie area as a Qing government administrative building for the customs office.

The Diaotai Ruins, meanwhile, are a significant historic site for research into Chen Baisha and the history of Jiangmen’s opening as a commercial port. They are located at the intersection of Dizhung Road and Diaotai Road. The railway site, customs administration, and commercial port history thus represent distinct historical perspectives. If you want to understand different aspects of Jiangmen’s past, these locations highlight different functions and themes rather than telling the same story from just one perspective.

Qimingli as a Historic Settlement

Qimingli, an overseas Chinese village in Jiangmen’s main urban settlement, has more than 100 houses built by overseas Chinese that are over a hundred years old. The focus here is not a single ruin or street, but a historic settlement as a whole. Qimingli thus complements the themes of commercial streets and railway and customs history with the history of an overseas Chinese village.

East Lake Park

East Lake Park offers a different focus from the historic streets and sites. Established in 1985, it covers 53 hectares, of which 16.5 hectares are water. These separate figures make clear that the water area accounts for only part of the park. For your trip, the park offers a distinct landscape attraction alongside Jiangmen’s architecture and urban history.

Discover more destinations: Yunfu, Yangjiang, Shantou, Heyuan, Dongguan, Shaoguan, Huizhou, Guangzhou

For the broader travel overview: Guangdong.