Zhijiang West Road: From Temple Road to Zhijiang
In one line
The only sub-district in Zhabei that wrote the "victory in the war of resistance" straight into a road name and a sub-district name.
Where it is
Zhijiang West Road sub-district lies in the south-centre of the district, next to Shanghai Railway Station, and covers about 1.56–1.60 km²:
To the east it borders Baoshan Road sub-district along Xizang North Road; to the south it runs along the railway; to the west it joins Tianmu West Road sub-district along Datong Road and Pushan Road; to the north it neighbours Gonghexin Road sub-district along Zhongshan North Road.
Its office stands at 155 Zhijiang West Road.
The name: a place name that "changed twice"
The name of this sub-district has the best story in the book.
The original name: Zhijiangmiao Road
Zhijiang West Road was originally Zhijiangmiao Road — named after a religious site, the Zhijiang Temple. A very typical case of "naming the road after the temple".
The change: commemorating victory in the war of resistance
In 1964 Zhijiangmiao Road was renamed Zhijiang West Road. The reason is interesting:
To commemorate victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, the road was renamed Zhijiang West Road after Zhijiang in Hunan, where the Japanese surrender was accepted.
— Zhijiang, Hunan was one of the places where Japan surrendered in China in August 1945 (the Zhijiang surrender). In 1964, nineteen years after the victory, this road was turned into "Zhijiang West Road", a name that carries at once a negation (erasing the old temple name) and a commemoration (remembering the victory).
The renaming of one road is a declaration of a historical attitude.
Lineage: split and merged over and over
The institutional history of Zhijiang West Road sub-district is complicated — a classic case of "split–merge–split–merge":
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 1953 | The area is the Ninth Office of Zhabei District, later the Nineteenth Office, then the Zhijiangmiao Road office |
| Nov 1958 | The Zhijiangmiao Road, Pushan Road and Liuying Road (part) offices merge to form the Fenghuo area office |
| Apr 1960 | The part north of Yanzhang Road is transferred out to Pengpu sub-district, and the rest is renamed Fenghuo sub-district |
| Nov 1962 | The part north of Zhongshan North Road is transferred to Pengpu sub-district |
| May 1964 | The part west of Pushan Road is transferred to Zhongxing Road sub-district |
| Aug 1987 | Renamed Zhijiang West Road sub-district |
| Nov 1996 | Zhijiang West Road sub-district and Qiujiang Road sub-district are abolished, and a new Zhijiang West Road sub-district is formed by merging them |
Note the change of 1987: the sub-district was renamed 23 years after the road (1964). The road became Zhijiang West Road first; the sub-district took more than two decades to follow. That tells you how slowly sub-district naming kept up.
An old sub-district that was merged away: Qiujiang Road
The Qiujiang Road sub-district merged away in 1996 has a piece of local history well worth telling:
The original Qiujiang Road sub-district covered the channel of the former course of Wusong River. In the Northern Song the Wusong River silted and narrowed, and came to be called the Old River, also known as Qiujiang; on both sides were reed marshes.
This passage lays bare the old bottom of the name "Qiujiang Road":
- Qiujiang is not an ordinary small stream: it is the former course of the Wusong River (Suzhou Creek);
- it takes its name from a sound change of "Old River";
- on both sides there were once reed marshes.
So today's Qiujiang Road in Zhabei — the one with the second-hand digital market — has beneath its feet a Suzhou Creek of a thousand years ago. This is, personally, my favourite piece of place-name knowledge in this book.
(Qiujiang also appears elsewhere in the district, as in the entries around Qiujiang Road mentioned in Part Three.)
Landmarks in the sub-district
| Landmark | Note |
|---|---|
| Jiaotong Park | A community park inside the sub-district; there is a "Jiaotong Park residents' committee" |
| Fuyuan Lane and Guanghua Lane | Typical old lilong housing areas |
| Qiujiang Road | The famous second-hand electronics and old-goods street of old Shanghai |
| Shanghai Railway Station (adjoining) | The southern boundary of the sub-district is the railway itself |
A set of figures (as before abolition)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Area | 1.56–1.60 km² |
| Resident population (2010 census) | 74,633 |
| Residents' committees | 18–19 |
| Households | 27,344 |
| Registered population | 78,837 |
| Office | 155 Zhijiang West Road |
What to see here today
- Qiujiang Road: walk it, and remember that it is a "former course";
- Zhijiang West Road: look at a street sign renamed to commemorate victory in the war of resistance;
- Jiaotong Park: rare greenery in an old sub-district.
- And one more: Zhijiang Middle Road (in the Baoshan Road sub-district area) belongs to the same batch of "Zhijiang" series names — you can walk the two together.
Sources: the derivation of the name and the institutional lineage follow the Boya place-name directory's "Origins of the place names of the sub-districts and towns of Jing'an District" and "Historical lineage of the sub-districts of Jing'an District", and the xzqh.org entry for Zhijiang West Road sub-district; the account of the former course of Qiujiang follows the xzqh.org lineage entry for the former Qiujiang Road sub-district. The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.