West Avenue

West Avenue (Chinese:西大街 or Xidajie in Chinese phonetic) is one of the most important streets in the city of Xi’an (a historical city in the middle of China). It has 400 years of history since the Ming Dynasty as a famous commercial street. The avenue starts at Bell Tower which is the core of the city and ends at West Gate (Chinese:西门 or Ximen in Chinese phonetic) which passes through the city wall.

Origin

The status that West Avenue has attributes greatly to a temple that cohered to the street. The name of the temple is called City God Temple.

City God Temple hosts the most important god that protects the city, so this temple has had most influence on ordinary people. It became an important meeting place for religion, commercial and public affairs even 400 years ago. West Avenue benefits from this temple ever since its birth.

Development

After the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949, West Avenue had kept its dominance status for almost 30 years. The City God Temple was actually occupied by small merchants and focal handcraft artists, and then a market was shaped spontaneously just in front of the temple. People from other parts of the city and even remote countries and villages came to this market. Then commercial spread out in West Avenue. It had the first department store “Jianhua Department Store” of this city, and many traditional famous-brand stores.