TouchBeijing.com

The name Xidan (literally, “West Single”) came from the paifang that existed on one of the streets there.In this context, the name “Xidan” refers to the single (单) paifang that existed on the west side (西) of the city.

The paifang was recently rebuilt, and now stands at the Xidan Culture Square.

History

Xidan began to develop in the Ming Dynasty as an area alongside the passage for traders from Southwestern China to enter Beijing. Restaurants and shops were eventually built for these merchants. Eventually, as the Western part of the city became the residential area for officials, Xidan became a commercial area. The location of several government agencies when Beijing was under the administration of the Republic of China also helped Xidan’s economic growth.

The area began to experience massive growth in the 1950s, as the population of Beijing began to move westwards. By the 1970s, Xidan, along with Qianmen and Wangfujing, became the three major commercial areas in Beijing.

Shops

Today this area is oriented to different consumer groups, providing mid- and high-quality commodities and compared with the Wangfujing’s fancy shops and Qianmen’s local shops, Xidan is reasonable place to shop, and compared with Xiushui Market, the vendors here are more patient and friendly.

To look for something in brands, you can try at: Joy City (大悦城), Grand Pacific (君太), Zhongyou (中友).

On the other hand, if you like something cheap, you can try at: Huawei (华威), Xinyidai Young World (新一代), Mingzhu (明珠), Minzhu Dashijie (民族大世界) or Xidan Cultural Square (西单文化广场) underground. But let me remind you, that it is always very noisy and crowdy.

The Xidan Shopping Center (西单商场), in the very north of the area, was the oldest in the aera, it is a bit tranditional department store, still in operation, but is not the center any more.

In the middle of this area, Minzhu Da Shijie (民族大世界) locates in a cluster of old style buildings. It was old mansion of a Prince (吴应熊), the son of Wu Sangui (吴三桂) in the beginning of Qing, according to an old book by Ji Xiaolan (纪晓岚), the mansion was haunted. In 1913, the Mongolian and Tibetan School (国立蒙藏学校) was founded here. Today it is a very busy commerical world at least in the day time… a 600 year Chinese date tree still survives here, in the jungle of the shops.

Xidan Cultural Square with a floor area of more than 35,000 square meters is the largest venue for a variety of cultural activities with a good environment in the downtown area of the capital at present, integrating recreation, entertainment and shopping. The central area of the commercial street is the recreation square. Xidan Cultural Square with underground restaurants, markets, cinema, bowling alley, swimming pool, rock-climbing club and the largest mirror palace in the country has become the largest venue for cultural entertainment along Chang’an Street.

Different from Wangfujing and Qianmen area, Xidan shopping area is not a pedestrian street, that is traffic is mixed with visitors, but a unique escalatored flyover bridge system connets most of the shops, it is very convenient and in the summer days, water fog was sprayed into the air to cool down the temperature.

Traffic

There are 27 buses stop at Xidan, and the most convenient way seems to be the Subway of Line 1 (after Oct. of 2009, line 4 will pass by as well), there are 3 Subway exits close by, with one of them goes into the underground shopping mall of Xidan Cultural Square, one more . Recently a street musician girl called “Xidan Girl” was famous for playing guitar at the subway entrance here.