Where to Stay in Xian

Plan your Xian tour? Xian is a very compact and walkable city, so no matter where you are going to stay you will easily get to the major attractions and shopping areas in Xian.

As an ancient capital in China, Xian now still keeps the fortifications built in Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644), one of the oldest and best preserved Chinese city walls. You may stay within the city wall or outside the city wall. But most traveler prefer to stay inside the city wall. The wall measures 14 km in circumference, 12m in height, and 15–18m in width at the base.

The city layout within Xian City Wall is based on a grid pattern centrally denoted by the grand Bell Tower (钟楼), which levels out four main avenues clockwise: East avenue (Dong Dajie 东大街), South Avenue ( Nan Dajie 南大街), West Avenue (Xi Dajie 西大街) and North Aevenue (Bei Dajie 北大街). Xian Railway Station is just located on the northeast corner of Xian city wall while Xian Airport is located 40km northwest of Xian.

Bell Tower Area

Bell Tower Area is the most central part of Xian with four main streets merged here. Under the Bell Tower, a newly completed Subway line 02 takes you to Xian North Railway Station or the exhibition center in the south. The Xian airport shuttle has one stop here in front of Xian Melody Hotel where you may get off or get on the shuttle bus to start or finish your Xian trip.

To the northwest of Bell Tower, there is a Starbucks (Bell Tower Shop). Walk westward from the Starbucks, you will see some local famous restaurants providing Xian dumplings and Yangrou Paomo (Bread and Mutton Soup). Further west, you come across Drum Tower. North of Drum Tower is the famous Muslim Quarters.

Suggested hotels: Melody Hotel Xian, Citadines Xi’an Central, and Bell Tower Hotel Xian

East Avenue Area

The East Avenue used to the most commercial street in Xian. Now its popularity is fading with its position having graduated taken by South Avenue and West Avenue. Outside the east gate of Xian City Wall is Shaanxi Song & Dance Theatre which puts on Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show every day.

Suggested hotels: Grand Metro Park Xian

South Avenue Area.

The South Avenue is the shortest avenues of the four with its southern tip meets the South Gate of Xian City Wall. The South Avenue is lined with high end and upstart shopping malls. Its city wall south gate is often used as a tourist spot where people strart to work. Forest of Stone Tablets is also located to the east of the south gate.

West Avenue Area

The West Street is rebuilt in a Tang Dynasty architecture style. This is the most beautiful streat, especially sparkling in the evening.

North Avenue Area

The North Avenue is the least commercial street of the four streets where Xian’s office buildings and government buidlings are dotted here and there around the North Avenue.

Suggested hotels: Days Inn City Centre Xian

Xian Railway Station Area

Xian Railway Station is located on the northeast corner of the city wall. It is a very bustling and commecial area. On the east square of the train station, there are directly buses going to Terra-cotta Army and Huaqing Hotspring.

South of Xian City Wall Area

The area outside the City Wall in the south is quite with some walkable attractions like Big Goose Pagoda and Shaanxi Museum.

Xi'an, Capital of Shaanxi Province

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Xi'an was one of the most important cradles of Chinese civilization. The famous ¡°Silk Road¡± that linked China with central Asia and the Roman Empire starts in Xi¡¯an in the east. The city served as the first capital of a unified China and capital of 11 dynasties periodically from the 11th century BC to the early 10th century AD.

Xi'an Bell Tower

Located between rivers and mountains in the center of the fertile Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi province, Xi'an--the provincial capital--is the natural place to nurture the nation's civilization. Back in the Neolithic Age, about 6,000 years ago, as excavations show, a matriarchal clan was formed at Banpo village in the region.

Thousands of years later, the Zhou kings established their capital in settlements only a few miles from the present-day city. In 331 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China, set about expanding the settlement of Xianyang, about 15 miles northwest of the city. This town, established under earlier Qin rulers as the capital, became heavily populated, so that in 313 BC, Emperor Qin decided to move his court to the south bank of the Wei River. A vast palace was begun. However, the work was never completed in his lifetime, and some years later when the Qin fell to the Han (306 BC), this and most of the other palaces were set ablaze anddestroyed.

Terra-cotta Warriors, Xi'an Terracotta Warriors Museum

The conqueror, Liu Bang, first emperor of the Han Dynasty, established his capital only a few miles north of modern day Xi'an.

From about 35 AD, the town went into a decline that lasted about five and a half centuries, until, in 583 AD, the Sui emperor, Wen Di, established his capital southeast of Changan. The area flourished and developed so quickly under the Tang Dynasty that in time it became the most prominent city in Asia, with a population of about a million people living in a vast, well-planned area protected by large walls with ramparts.

For over a millennium from the Second Century BC, China's silk was transported from Xi'an to central Asia and Europe. Although damaged by several wars, Xi'an, covering 880 square miles and with a population of 3,915,000 still contains a host of historical sites.

Xi'an Bell Tower Sqare

SHAANXI PROVINCIAL MUSEUM (Forest of Stele)
The Shaanxi Provincial Museum is an expansion of the Forest of Stele, located on the site of the ancestral temple of the Tang Dynasty. The garden-style museum of ancient architecture is kept to protect the cultural relics and for the display and study of antiquities. The Forest of Stele was first founded in 1090, during the Song Dynasty. It is the oldest and richest collection of stele in China. The steles are in such large quantity that they are likened to a forest, hence the name. The forest consists of six large exhibition halls, seven corridors and a stele pavilion. There are more than 1,000 stele from eight dynasties from the Han down to the Qing. They are of great value to historians and for the study of calligraphic development.