People's Park () is an urban public park and Qing-era Chinese garden in Hexi District in central

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. Originally built in 1863 as the private Rong Garden (), it was donated to the state and opened to the public in 1951.

Geography

People's Park is in the northeast of Hexi District, bounded by Xiamen Road in the east, Guangdong Road in the west, Qiongzhou Road in the south, and Huizhou Road in the north. It covers an area of , including of water.

History

Built in 1863 during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

, the park was originally the private garden of the wealthy salt merchant

Li Chuncheng Li Chuncheng (; born April 1956) is a former Chinese politician. He spent his early career in Heilongjiang Province, before being transferred to Sichuan in 1998. He served as the Mayor and then Communist Party Secretary of Chengdu, capital of Si ...

(). Its formal name was Rong Garden, but it was commonly called the Li Shanren (Philanthropist Li) Garden. After the establishment of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in 1949, the Li family donated the garden to the state, and it was opened to the public on 1 July 1951 as People's Park. In 1954, Chairman

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

presented the park with his

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

of its name. It is the only work of calligraphy Mao wrote for a park. After major renovation work, the park was reopened in 2009. Entrance is free.

References

{{Landmarks in Tianjin, state=collapsed 1863 establishments in China 1951 establishments in China Parks in Tianjin Urban public parks Gardens in China Parks established in the 1950s