Beijing's Hutongs

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China Daily Article on Hutong Research

"Bye Bye Beijing" The Hutong Destruction

Hutong (胡同) are narrow streets or alleys, found throughout Beijing, China.

The word hutong comes from the Mongolian hottog meaning "water well." During the development of towns and cities, wells dug by villagers formed the center of the new community.

In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods.

In old China, streets and lanes were defined by width. Hutongs were lanes no wider than 9 metres. Many are smaller; Beijing hutongs range in width from 10 metres down to only 40 centimetres.

Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they have been demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve Beijing's cultural history.

Historic Hutongs

Beijing was developed during the Yuan, Ming & Qing dynasties to meet the needs of the emperor and the court. At the center was the Forbidden City, surrounded in concentric circles by the Inner City and Outer City. Citizens of higher social status were permitted to live closer to the center of the circles.

Aristocrats lived to the east and west of the imperial palace. The large siheyuan of these high-ranking officials and wealthy merchants often featured beautifully carved and painted roof beams and pillars and carefully landscaped gardens. The hutongs they formed were orderly, lined by spacious homes and walled gardens. Farther from the palace, and to its north and south, were the commoners, merchants, artisans and laborers. Their siheyuan were far smaller in scale and simpler in design and decoration, and the hutongs were narrower.

Nearly all siheyuan had their main buildings and gates facing south for better lighting; thus a majority of hutongs run from east to west. Between the main hutongs, many tiny lanes ran north and south for convenient passage.

Modern Hutongs

At the turn of the 20th century, as dynastic power waned, many new hutongs were built haphazardly and with no centralized plan throughout the outskirts of the old city. Established hutongs declined in order and neatness as more average citizens bagan to move in the region.

During the Republican period (1911 to 1948), the country was fraught with unstable conditions, civil wars and repeated foreign invasions. Beijing deteriorated, and the conditions of the hutongs worsened. Siheyuan previously owned and occupied by a single family were subdivided and shared by many households, with additions tacked on as needed, built with whatever materials were available. The 978 hutongs listed in Qing Dynasty records swelled to 1,330 by 1949.

Hutongs in Decline

Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, many of the old hutongs disappeared, replaced by the high rises and wide boulevards of today’s Beijing. Many citizens left the lanes where their families resided for generations, resettling in apartment buildings with modern amenities. In Xicheng District, for example, nearly 200 hutongs out of the 820 it held in 1949 have disappeared. The Beijing Municipal Construction Committee stated in 2004, some 250,000 square meters of old housing - 20,000 households - would be demolished in 2004.

However, many of Beijing’s ancient hutongs still stand, and a number of them have been designated protected areas. The older neighborhoods still surviving today offer a glimpse of life in old Beijing.

In Beijing, the hutongs in the vicinity of the Bell Tower and Shichahai Lake are especially well preserved. These hutongs are well touristed though and you have to be on watch for groups of pedicabs racing through the alleyways with tourists holding on for dear life as they race through the lanes.