Asia Travel Destinations

Orientation To the first-time visitor, Beijing seems a vast and sprawling city. Characterized by long, wide boulevards and a labyrinthine network of overpasses and freeways, the place can be quite bewildering.

Fortunately, there is order in the chaos. At the heart of Beijing lies the Forbidden City, around which run four concentric ring roads. The first of these is barely worth mention, but the second and third are essential for navigating around town. Finally, the fourth is useful for commuting to the airport and outlying suburbs. These ring roads are broken down logically according to points of the compass, so “East Third Ring Road North Road” means the northernmost stretch of the eastern section of the Third Ring Road. Easy!

There are 10 districts and eight counties in Beijing municipality proper, with each district containing distinctive “areas”. Most areas of interest are in the eastern Chao Yang and central Dong Cheng districts, which make up downtown. The following are highlights:

Chao Yang District–As the most concentrated commercial and residential area in Beijing, Chao Yang offers many areas of interest for the visitor. Within this district are Chao Yang Park, the San Li Tun nightlife area, and the Jian Guo Men and Ri Tan business and embassy districts.

Read more:  travel.aol.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 8:41 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Digg it | Bookmark at del.icio.us