Linli Paradise

The story of Linli Paradise

Linli Paradise sits in Chongwenmen, a place whose shape was once defined by Beijing’s city wall. Chongwenmen was a gate in the southeastern part of the inner city, immediately south of the old Beijing Legation Quarter. In the 1960s, the gate and much of the wall were torn down to make room for Beijing’s second ring road.

What you stand in now is part of a transport node. Chongwenmen Station is an interchange on Lines 2 and 5 of the Beijing Subway, and the surrounding streets still mark the old layout: Chongwenmen Nei and Chongwenmen Wai run north–south through the former gate, while Chongwenmen East and Chongwenmen West Street trace the line where the wall stood.

The name also survives in the city’s administration. Chongwen District, created in 1952 and folded into Dongcheng District in 2010, was named after Chongwenmen.

So the most striking thing here is not a single monument, but the way an old gate, a vanished wall, and a busy junction still organize the area around you. If you want to place yourself on the old city map, look for the crossing of the Inner and Outer Chongwenmen streets and the diagonal Beijing Station West Street leading northwest toward Beijing railway station.