Zhongshan Road

Zhongshan (中山) is a common name of Chinese roads, avenues and boulevards, in honour of Sun Yat-sen, better-known in Chinese as Sun Zhongshan, who is considered by many to be the "Father of modern China".

In China mainland, Zhongshan Road is the only road named after a national leader, even Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping doesn't have this privilege.

In a number of major Chinese cities, Zhongshan Road is one of the city's main roads. As a result, the road is often very long and divided into numbered sections. In Guangzhou, the Zhongshan Road is separated into eight sections, identified as the "First Zhongshan Road" to the "Eighth Zhongshan Road". In Shanghai, Zhongshan Road stretches around the whole city, the road is divided into numerous sections, identified by a direction and a number, such as the "East-1 Zhongshan Road".

In contrast of Zhongzheng Road, named after Chiang Kai-shek, Zhongshan Roads in mainland China were not renamed after 1949, and survived "revolutionary" name changes in the Cultural Revolution. In mainland China today, Sun Yat-sen remains the only modern politician commemorated in road names: no Communist leader, such as Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, shares this privilege.

In Taiwan, some Zhongshan Roads were renamed because of merging of towns caused duplicate road names.

List of Zhongshan Roads

*Zhongshan road in Nanjing was a ceremonial avenue built for the purpose of conveying Sun Yat-sen' funeral procession to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum outside the city. It connects the Zhongshan port and the Zhongshan Gate. In 1933, the road was separated into North Zhongshan Road, Zhongshan Road and East Zhongshan Road. After the Chinese Civil War, Zhongzheng Road (named after Chiang Kai-shek), which was connected to the Zhongshan road, was renamed to South Zhongshan road.

*Zhongshan Road in Shanghai is the road marking the boundary of the traditional urban area, and forms and incomplete circle (the Huangpu River serves as part of the boundary). This road was built in 1930s. The goals of building this road were to prevent the expansion of the foreigner concessions in Shanghai (e.g. Shanghai International Settlement and French Concession in Shanghai) and to connect the three Chinese urban areas, Nanshi, Zhabei, and Jiangwan together. The Bund is today a section of the Zhongshan Road.

*Zhongshan Road is a major arterial in Taipei.

*The Zhongshan Roads of Jhonghe City and Yonghe City in Taiwan are connected.

Variants of Zhongshan Road

Two roads in Macau SAR were built in the name of Sun Yat-sen, in honour of Sun, who had set foot and lived in Macau. One road is called "Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-sen" (孫逸仙大馬路), located at the southern part of Macau Peninsula. The other road has the same name "Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-sen" (孫逸仙博士大馬路), located at Taipa Island. Note: the official Portuguese name of the two roads are the same, but the Chinese translations are different. There is also a traffic roundabout, called "Rotunda Dr. Sun Yat-sen" (孫逸仙博士圓形地) joins two sections of the "Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-sen" (Taipa) as well as the "Avenida de Guimarães" (基馬拉斯大馬路).

Literal meaning of characters

The literal meaning of the characters "Zhong" and "shan" are "Central/Middle" and "Mountain"; the name was adopted by Sun Yat-sen while in Japan in the early 1900s. For more information on the names of Sun Yat-sen, see Names of Sun Yat-sen.