Zhengyangmen, better known in English as the Qianmen gate, was the central southern gate of Beijing's inner city wall and the point at which the Central Axis crossed the fortifications. It was the most important gate in the system, used by the emperor himself, and it is the only one of the inner city gates whose tower survives in anything like its historic form. The gatehouse and its companion arrow tower stand one hundred metres apart, exactly as they did when the wall ran between them.
The gatehouse and the arrow tower
The gatehouse is a tall brick platform pierced by an arched passage, carrying a three-storey timber tower with a double-eaved roof and green glazed tiles; the structure you see was rebuilt after a fire at the end of the nineteenth century and restored in the 1990s. In front of it, on the southern side, stands the arrow tower - a much wider, lower brick block built for defence rather than ceremony, with tiers of windows intended for archers. Both are now used as exhibition spaces and neither is a working gate, but the pairing is the clearest surviving illustration of how a Chinese city gate worked: a ceremonial block for control, and a wide, heavy tower for defence.
The quarter around it
The gate is set between Tiananmen Square to the north and Qianmen Street to the south, a pedestrianised shopping street that has been rebuilt in a period style and which runs down towards the old commercial district at Dashilan. The area is dense with snack shops, tea houses, cloth shops and the small side lanes known collectively as Dashilan, where the architecture is more authentic than on the main street. The Qianmen metro station serves the site directly, and the whole quarter makes a natural half day on foot.
Practical notes
The gate and tower are open as museums on most days, and tickets are inexpensive; both are closed on Mondays along with most of Beijing's public museums. The square in front of the gate is a major traffic interchange, so use the underpasses rather than attempting to cross the road. Late afternoon is the best time to photograph the two buildings together, since the sun then falls along the axis from the west. Combine the visit with Tiananmen Square to the north or the Dashilan lanes to the south, both within a few minutes' walk.
