石家庄市

Understand

Shijiazhuang is a comparatively young city. It was an unimportant town until the Zhengding-Taiyuan and Beijing-Hankou railways were built, whereupon it become a regional transport hub. Captured by the People's Liberation Army under the leadership of the Communist Party in 1947, it was the cradle of the new China, and for three years housed the party headquarters.

Get around

Most tourist attractions are outside the city.

Traffic is marginal, except at rush hour, at which point it could take as much as 20 minutes to get through certain intersections on many of the major roads (especially Ping'An Da Jie, Zhongshan Lu, Yuhua Lu, Jianshe Da Jie and Zhonghua Lu).

See

There are a number of sightseeing places in the area, both natural and historic. Most are not in the city.

Buy

Shijiazhuang is home to large wholesale markets and a good place for great bargains. Be prepared to haggle. There are also a number of very large modern department stores. One of them on the east side of the city is Yuhua Wanda, located on Huai An Lu just east of Century Park, features fast food and an IMAX movie theater, and numerous reasonably priced clothing stores.