The urban core of Tianjin extends for about seven miles from east to west and about nine miles from north to south. Heping, the central district, is located on the west bank of the Hai River, just below the large bend of the Hai. It is the main commercial and financial centre, and its two main streets of Heping Lu (Heping Road) and Jiefang Lu have large department stores, restaurants, and hotels.

The old “Chinese” city is situated immediately to the northwest of Heping Lu. It is bounded by the four wide boulevards of Dong, Xi, Bei, and Nan Malu that follow the course of the old rectangular wall. The street pattern in the old city is winding and irregular, in contrast to the more regular gridded pattern in the foreign-developed zones to the south and west. The old city is subdivided into four smaller sections, each of which in traditional times had special marketing and commercial functions.

North and west of the old city and continuing across the Nan Yunhe is the mixed residential and industrial Hongqiao district. It extends to the confluence of the Ziya River, Bei Yunhe, and Nan Yunhe. The northern outskirts contain workers’ housing developments, and the area is best known for its domestic handicrafts.

The southern and western neighbourhoods of Hexi and the Nankai district were built on what (until it was drained) was marshy, low-lying land. Nankai district in the west and southwest is given primarily to residential and recreational use. Nankai is also a major university and research centre. Hexi neighbourhood to the south is now one of the major industrial districts, with more than 120 large and medium-sized enterprises located there.

The eastern districts of Hebei and Hedong, east of the Hai River, centre on industry and transport. Hebei has a few technical and vocational educational institutions in addition to its residential quarters, while Hedong is mainly industrial.

Housing and architecture

The provision of housing for Tianjin’s workforce has been a major concern of the municipal authorities. The emphasis since 1949 has been on suburban development, although residential areas in the urban core have also been rehabilitated. Major new residential and commercial construction was undertaken in the early 1980s in central Tianjin as a result of damage incurred in the Tangshan earthquake of 1976. Before World War II many of the suburban residential areas were built on marshy, poorly drained land subject to flooding, and sanitary conditions were especially bad. Most of the modern complexes have been constructed near industrial zones on the outskirts of the city.

Many of the large commercial and administrative buildings in the central city were built by foreign concessionaires. They are typical of European and Japanese colonial architecture of the 1920s and 1930s, with buildings of contrasting architectural styles juxtaposed helter-skelter, without any plan. Some of the public buildings dating from the 1950s were built in imitation of the Soviet monolithic style, and housing complexes are usually standard multistory rectangular blocks. More recent commercial and residential construction follows modern design, with individual balconies and multicoloured facades.

Industry

Since 1949 heavy industry has been developed and the existing industrial base consolidated for greater productivity. Major activities are the production of heavy machinery, chemicals, and iron and steel and shipbuilding and repair. The heavy-machine-building plant in the city is one of China’s largest manufacturers of mining equipment. Other products include machinery for textile mills and agriculture, machine tools, electrical equipment, bicycles, tractors, elevators, precision instruments, trucks, and watches.

The chemical complexes at Dagu, Tanggu, and Hangu (north of Tanggu on the rail line to Tangshan) produce agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and petrochemical products, plastics, artificial fibres, dyestuffs, and paints. The Yongli (now Tianjin) alkali products plant at Tanggu accounts for much of China’s total output of purified soda, some of which is exported to Japan.

Textiles are the chief light industry. Other such products include processed foods, hides, rubber goods, and paper. Since the 1980s dozens of the world’s top companies have invested in Tianjin, following the city’s adoption of economic reform policies.

Finance

Financial services include branches of the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, The People’s Insurance Company of China, and other banks. Retail and wholesale trade is managed by commerce bureaus that are responsible to municipal and provincial authorities. Pricing and personnel matters are managed locally, while the distribution of commodities, long-range planning, and high-level financial management are handled by provincial-level bureaus responsible to Beijing. A municipality-run General Trade Corporation formed in the early 1980s helps coordinate and improve the efficiency of domestic and foreign trade by assuming functions previously performed by central government agencies.

Transportation

Tianjin is North China’s leading transport centre. The Jing-Hu (former Jin-Pu) railway runs south from Beijing to Shanghai via Jinan, Shandong province, and Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. The Jing-Shan railway runs north from Beijing through Tianjin and Shanhaiguan on the Hebei-Liaoning border to Shenyang, Liaoning province. The lines are served in Tianjin by three railway stations, classification yards, and extensive maintenance and repair facilities.

Heavily traversed inland waterways radiate to the south and southwest along the Grand Canal and Ziya and Daqing rivers; they connect the city with Baoding, Cangzhou, and Hengshui in southern Hebei province. The Jing-Jin-Tang expressway from Beijing through Tianjin to Tanggu is the main all-weather freight road to the sea. Other main roads extend southward along the Jing-Hu railway into Shandong province, westward to Shanxi province, and northward to Qinhuangdao, northeastern Hebei, and the Northeast (formerly Manchuria).

Intraurban and suburban transport is extensive. Several dozen intraurban trolley, electric trolleybus, and motor bus routes connect the city’s light railway and subway stations and serve the near suburban districts. The first 7.5 miles (12 km) of Central Tianjin’s subway line was in operation by mid-1983 and had been extended to 16 miles (26 km) by 2006; three more lines are under construction. In addition, about two dozen long-distance motor bus routes connect the urban core with more distant rural areas.

Tianjin is the main collection point and transshipment centre in North China for goods manufactured for export and is the chief port of entry for heavy machinery and other capital-intensive imports. Much of China’s total foreign trade by value is handled through Tianjin’s outport and fishing port of Tanggu.