Dongquan Gate

Dongquan Gate is an old street in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, running east–west, from Guoqing Road in the west to Guanxiang in the east, about 700 metres long, parallel to Yangzhou's east–west main artery Wenchang Middle Road. It is noted for preserving a large number of old Ming and Qing dwellings, in particular the residences of salt merchants, and is one of the historic districts protected by the city of Yangzhou.

Dongquan Gate took shape in the Ming dynasty. During the Zhengde era, because the Salt Transport Commission stood alone outside the city (the old city of Yangzhou), three gatehouses were built on the eastern, southern and northern sides; the eastern gatehouse was called Dongquanmen, and a street formed running eastwards from it, becoming a place where salt merchants gathered to live.

There are many cultural relics and historic sites along Dongquan Gate street; from west to east there are the Dongquanmen gatehouse, Hu Garden, the Qingxi Old Residence (former residence of the classical scholars Liu Wenqi and Liu Shipei), and the Wang Family's Small Garden (a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu province); the western end of the street faces the former gate hall of the Salt Transport Commission office, while the eastern end is the Qionghua Temple. The former residence of Jiang Zemin is at No. 16 on this street.

Machine-translated from “东圈门” on the Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Dongquan Gate ranks #7,830 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #99 of the 119 mapped in China. The nearest day-trip guide is Nanjing, 72 km away. See how China compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Chinese) ↗