Xijiaomin Lane

Name: Xijiaomin Lane, West Jiaomin Lane, Xijiaomin Xiang
Chinese Name: 西交民巷
Length: 3,280 feet (1,000 meters)
Location: Stretching west from Tiananmen Square West Road to North Xinhua Street
 
To the west of the Tiananmen Square, there is a classical western-style building, which stands at the east end of anold hutong - Xijiaomin (West Jiaomin) Lane. Unlike the crowded square, this hutong is very quiet. However, from the late Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) to the end of the 20th century, it was the busy 'Financial Street of Old Beijing' filled with Chinese-funded banks, such as the Central Bank Peking Branch, the Agriculture and Industry Bank of China, the Continental Bank, and the Commercial Guarantee Bank of the Beiyang Government. As you walk along this hutong with its magnificent old bank sites, you can imagine the prosperity of this former financial area.