Dongmen Pedestrian Street

Shenzhen's oldest commercial district, and the market town that gave the city its name. It began as the Shenzhen market town - villages like Chikan, Luohu, Getang and Hubei set up a market between them in the mid-Ming - and when 'Shenzhen' became the name of the city in 1979, the market was renamed Dongmen Old Street. What you walk through today is mostly the 1999 rebuild and the current one: since March 2024 it has been the only pedestrian street in Shenzhen in the Ministry of Commerce upgrade pilot, renovated 'without closing the street or shutting the shops', with 21 building facades redone and six Lingnan arcade houses - Xihua Gong, Yaohua Lou, Wenshan Lou - given careful repairs by the end of 2025.