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'Tianhe' (Chinese: 天河區) District is one of the ten districts in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China. In Chinese, the name Tianhe means ''a river in the sky''. It is bordered by Yuexiu District on the west, Baiyun District on the north and Huangpu District on the east. Zhuhai District is on its south, though they are separated by the Zhujiang River.
Tianhe became a district in the 1980s as the city expanded its size. Back then, it was east of another district called Dongshan (which had been merged into Yuexiu in 2005) and it was more suburban like if not rural like. Despite a majority of colleges and universities in the city are located in the district, the rest of the district were mostly composed of rice fields.

Contents

Projects

Education

Transportation

Notable buildings

References

Projects

The first big project built in the district during the 1980s was the 'Tianhe Sports Center' where the city landed as host of the Sixth National Games in 1986. The complex include a stadium of 65,000 seats, a gymnasium and an indoor swimming pool and it literally transformed the district. Soon other projects followed and rice fields gave away to residential complexes called "xiaoqu" (meaning "little districts"). The construction of ''xiaoqu'' began in the mid and late eighties and most of them had residential buildings of no more than 10 stories. Each floor was kept to no more than four units due to the lack of elevators since they would increase the construction cost. Also, due to the sheer number of residential buildings — some ''xiaoqu'' had more than 20 residential buildings, therefore, a lot of land was needed and thus converted.
The building of 'Guangzhou East Railroad Station' in 1990 further contributed to the growth of the district. The old Guangzhou Railroad Station is 10 km to the west and was the terminus for trains from and to Beijing and Hong Kong. To relieve the traffic, the East Railroad Station was built and it is now the terminus for trains from and to Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
As the district developed, the size of ''xiaoqu'' became smaller since land became more valuable and expensive. Most of the new ''xiaoqu'' now only consist of four to six residential buildings but each can contain 30 floors or more since the growth of district attracted big developers where the cost of construction (such as elevators) was no longer the issue. Also, taller residential buildings gave rise to taller office buildings.
A part of the district that is south of the Sports Center and north of the Zhujian River, called "Zhu Jian Xin Cheng" (meaning Pearl River New City) which was desolate a decade ago but is now almost built-up with only high-rise buildings. A twin towers, said to be taller than CITIC Plaza were proposed.

Education

Many of the city's colleges and universities are located in the district. They include:

★ Guangzhou Sports College

★ Guangzhou Military College

★ Jinan University

★ Guangdong Industrial University

★ Huanan Agricultural University

★ Huanan Technological and Industrial University

★ Huanan Teachers University

Transportation

Besides the Guangzhou East Railroad Station (where natives often just refer it as East Station), Tianhe is also the terminus several metro lines:

★ Metro Line 1 (built) connects Tianhe and Liwan via Yuexiu.

★ Metro Line 3 (under construction) connects Tianhe with Panyu via Haizhu.

★ Metro Line 4 (under construction) connects Tianhe with Panyu.

Notable buildings

★ CITIC Plaza, is a complex completed in 1997 between Tianhe Sports Center and Gaungzhou East Railroad Station, that has a 80-story, 391 m (1,291 ft) skyscraper of the same name. It was briefly the tallest building in China and now the third tallest in the country and seventh in the world.

★ Pearl River Tower, a skyscraper under construction at the junction of Jinsui Road/Zhujiang Avenue West. It is due for completion Autumn 2009 and will be occupied by the China National Tobacco Corporation.^[1]

References

1. "The winds of change", World Architecture News