Site of the Former Xiangcheng City

Site of the Former Xiangcheng City

【Site of the Former Xiangcheng City】 is located at the southern foot of Xiangshan Mountain. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, remnants of the city wall still existed intermittently. In the 1950s and 1960s, some parts were still visible, and during the 1963 cultural relics survey, the remaining sections of the city wall were clearly identifiable as being built from rammed earth. The base was 60–70 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, with a missing corner in the northwest of the city outline. To the northeast of the former Xiangshan city, and on the southern and western sections of the city wall, artifacts such as Chu dynasty currency (trouser-shaped, inscribed with "Shu Bu Dang Xin"), bronze short swords from the Warring States period, and bronze charcoal tools have been unearthed. After the 1970s, with the construction of the new city, all traces of the ancient city walls have vanished.

The ancient city was divided into an outer city and an inner city. The outer city’s boundaries: The eastern section of the northern wall extended approximately 700 meters eastward from the intersection of Huayuan Road and Minsheng Road; the western section extended about 1000 meters westward from the intersection of Huayuan Road and the southern side of Huaihai Road to Suixi Road; the eastern wall ran about 1150 meters southward from the west side of the Miners’ General Hospital through the Transportation Bureau to the area south of the railway; the western wall stretched about 800 meters along the southern side of Huaihai Road and along Suixi Road to Haigong Road; the southern wall extended about 1700 meters eastward from Haigong Road. The total area covered approximately 1.6 square kilometers.

The inner city was located at the protruding northeastern corner of the outer city, covering the following area: It stretched about 500 meters from Zhahe Road in the east to Xinhua Lane in the west; and about 600 meters from Minsheng Road in the north to Gucheng Road in the south.