Tianhe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tianhe District is one of the ten districts in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China. In Chinese, the name Tianhe means a river in the sky. It is bordered by Yuexiu District on the west, Baiyun District on the north and Huangpu District on the east. Zhuhai District is on its south, though they are separated by the Zhujiang River.
Tianhe became a district in the 1980's as the city expanded its size. Back then, it was east of another district called Dongshan (which had been merged into Yuexiu in 2005) and it was more suburban like if not rural like. Despite a majority of colleges and universities in the city are located in the district, the rest of the district were mostly composed of rice fields.
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[edit] Projects
The first big project built in the district during the 1980's was the Tianhe Sports Center where the city landed as host of the Sixth National Games in 1986. The complex include a stadium of 65,000 seats, a gymnasium and an indoor swimming pool and it literally transformed the district. Soon other projects followed and rice fields gave away to residential complexes called "xiaoqu" (meaning "little districts"). The construction of xiaoqu began in the mid and late eighties and most of them had residential buildings of no more than 10 stories and no more than four units per floor due to the fact they don't have elevators since the elevators would increase the construction cost. However, the number of residential buildings was sheer — some xiaoqu has more than 20 residential buildings, therefore, a lot of land was needed.
The building of Guangzhou East Railroad Station in 1990 further contributed to the growth of the district. The old Guangzhou Railroad Station is 10 km to the west and was the terminus for trains from and to Beijing and Hong Kong. To relief the traffic, the East Railroad Station was built and it's now the terminus for trains from and to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, a city borders Hong Kong.
As the district develops, the size of xiaoqu becomes smaller since land become more valuable and expansive. Most of the new xiaoqu now only consist of four to six residential buildings but each can contain 30 floors or more since the growth of district attracts big developers where the cost of construction (such as elevators) is no longer the issue. Also, taller residential buildings give rise to taller office buildings.
A part of the district that is south of the Sports Center and north of the Zhujian River, called "Zhu Jian Xin Cheng" (meaning Pearl River New City) which was desolate a decade ago but is now almost built-up with only high-rise buildings. A twin towers, said to be taller than CITIC Plaza were proposed.
[edit] Education
Many of the city's colleges and universities are located in the district. They include:
- Guangzhou Sports College
- Guangzhou Military College
- Jinan University
- Guangdong Industrial University
- Huanan Agricultural University
- Huanan Technological and Industrial University
- Huanan Teachers University
[edit] Transportation
Besides the Guangzhou East Railroad Station (where natives often just refer it as East Station), Tianhe is also the terminus several metro lines:
- Metro Line 1 (built) connects Tianhe and Liwan via Yuexiu.
- Metro Line 3 (under construction) connects Tianhe with Panyu via Haizhu.
- Metro Line 4 (under construction) connects Tianhe with Panyu.
[edit] Notable buildings
- CITIC Plaza, is a complex completed in 1997 between Tianhe Sports Center and Gaungzhou East Railroad Station, that has a 80-story, 391 m (1,291 ft) skyscraper of the same name. It was briefly the tallest building in China and now the third tallest in the country and seventh in the world.
- Pearl River Tower, a skyscraper under construction at at the junction of Jinsui Road/Zhujiang Avenue West. It is due for completion Autumn 2009 and will be occupied by the China National Tobacco Corporation.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ "The winds of change", World Architecture News
