Zhongshan Road, a history of Quanzhou spanning a thousand years

"Two towers in the east and west, one street from south to north." This is a verse left by Dong Biwu when he visited Quanzhou in 1960, in which "one street from south to north" refers to Zhongshan Road. Just like the east and west towers that have stood for nearly a thousand years, Zhongshan Road is also one of Quanzhou's landmark buildings. In the ancient city that has existed for a thousand years, Zhongshan Road, which is only a hundred years old, may still be considered young, but this road, running through the entire ancient city of Quanzhou, is the core area of the ancient city, witnessing Quanzhou's cultural and commercial pulse from the prosperous Tang Dynasty to the present without interruption. The history of Zhongshan Road can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty, and it is one of the earliest developed streets and areas in Quanzhou. As early as the Song and Yuan dynasties, it was the busiest district in Quanzhou. After expansions and extensions over the generations, it has formed a street that stretches from Quanshan Gate in the north to Deji Gate in the south, with a total length of about 2.5 kilometers. In the early 1920s, to improve the backward traffic situation of the ancient city of Quanzhou, the city walls were demolished for road construction, and the north-south street was transformed and built with investment from well-known overseas Chinese, featuring a unique Nanyang style. Later, to commemorate Mr. Sun Yat-sen, it was renamed "Zhongshan Road". As the first widened road in the old city area of Quanzhou, the complete preservation of this historic and cultural district of Zhongshan Road has allowed the "cross-shaped city framework" of the old city to be well preserved.