The Stories Behind Changsha's Old Street Names — Did You Know?

i. Wuyi Road

The first great arterial road built in Changsha after Liberation, broken ground on May 1st, 1950. Not long after it opened, the largest department store in the city at the time rose along this very road.

ii. Ami Ridge

Because "Ami" (Amitabha) is a Buddhist term, the ridge was renamed for a period — the great irony of its history — "Materialist Ridge."

iii. Xiangya Road

Once renamed "Anti-Imperialist Road." It runs beside the Xiangya Hospital and faces the old North Railway Station, so it was also called Station Road for a time, before returning to its original name.

iv. Yuhua Pavilion

A deeply poetic name: it describes Buddhist scripture preached so beautifully that rain fell like flowers. Yuhua Pavilion was once a large temple complex — the Tongzhi-era county gazetteer records its dedication and its rebuilding after the fires of 1852. Legend has it the earliest pavilion was built from materials left over after the Grand Temple of Mount Heng, which would date it to around 725 AD, the same era as that temple. A six-sided tower some twenty meters tall, it stood high enough to overlook the entire city — from Tianxin Pavilion, gazing southeast, you could just make it out on the horizon.

v. Pozi Street

Pozi Street was once the "banking street" of Changsha — not a food street. Apart from the snack stalls around Huogongdian, there wasn't a single restaurant here. In the old days it came in three parts: Upper Pozi Street held the banks, gold shops and money houses; Lower Pozi Street the medicinal herb firms and cloth wholesalers; and Cross Pozi Street the workshops making fashionable wooden furniture.

vi. Liren Lane

The lane takes its name from the Analects of Confucius: "It is beautiful to dwell among the virtuous." In 1862, Changsha's earliest photography studio — the very first in Hunan Province — opened right here: Changqing Pavilion. Locals found the new contraption so novel that visitors came in an endless stream.

vii. Yingpan Road

A quiet old street of granite slabs in the north of the city. Its runner-up name was "Exhibition Hall Road," after the provincial exhibition hall nearby. But the city's naming committee judged "Yingpan Road" more fitting: it was here, eight centuries ago, that the poet-general Xin Qiji raised the Flying Tiger Army, and the streets near his camp took its name. Tradition won.

viii. Cai E Road

Once called Bailing Road, honoring General Xue Yue (courtesy name Bailing), the governor of Hunan celebrated for the defense of Changsha. In 1943 it was renamed after Cai E, the republican general born not far away.

ix. Shuidao Lane

Running west from Yongqing Lane to Beizheng Street. A bandit surnamed Xiang once lived in this lane, and people called the place "Bandit Xiang" — over the generations, the name blurred by homophone into today's "Waterway Lane."

x. Xinkai Pu

It sounds like a shop — "pu" means store — but it was actually a post station. This stood on the ancient post road from Changsha's south gate toward Xiangtan. On the old courier routes between towns, post stations like this one offered fresh horses, food and lodging for officials carrying dispatches and military reports.