Six centuries on, Zhengyangmen opens every door

For six centuries, it has guarded the southern entrance of the imperial city, and for much of that time, it kept much of itself hidden. Now Zhengyangmen Gate, better known to visitors as Qianmen, has opened in full.

The gate anchors the southern end of Beijing's Central Axis, the 7.8-kilometer ceremonial spine added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2024. Its complete opening reveals details long closed to view: original roof-ridge guardian beasts, or wangshou; surviving traces of the imperial carriageway, the yulu; and the weighted sluice gate, the qianjin zha, that once dropped to seal the capital at nightfall.

From the tower, visitors now look down on the bustle of a modern metropolis from a structure built to defend a medieval one.

The reopening coincides with the 2026 Beijing Culture Forum, part of a wider effort to turn the Central Axis from a line on a map into a walkable narrative — and a test of how much of the past a heritage site can safely return to the public.