Dashilar: Gateway of Beijing
What is Old Beijing?
People often talk about the city as if it once existed in a pure, untouched version. But in reality, Beijing has always been a city shaped by waves of migrants.
It is difficult to find a better example of this than Dashilar. For hundreds of years this area of Beijing was the ever-simmering melting pot of the capital. Dashilar was the place where people would first enter Beijing. Through hard labour, personal relations, money, skills or whatever they brought with them, newcomers would find their way into urban society.
Gateway of Old Beijing
The area now known as Dashilar was originally a group of settlements outside the main gate of the city. Tradesmen coming in from the outside would settle here on the doorstep of the Yuan dynasty capital. Over time the area became so big that a new city wall was built around the area in 1550. However, Dashilar did not get its name till the Qing dynasty - the earliest known use can be found on the Qianlong map of Beijing from 1761. Dashilar literally means “big fence” which derives from the fact that all hutong alleyways in Beijing had a manned gate that would be closed at night and the Dashilar street was especially broad. Originally Dashilar only referred to a single commercial street, but today the name is used in a much wider sense to describe the whole area just south west of the Qianmen gate.
5-minute Hutong Journeys
We have been constantly updating 5-minutes videos on our Youtube Channel for virtual tours of the hutongs. Click the video below to explore the Dashilar neighborhood with us.
New Findings Related to Dashilar
