Tianjin is often described as the only ancient Chinese city with a precisely recorded founding date, 23 December 1404, when the Yongle Emperor ordered a garrison and walls built at a river crossing he had once forded while marching to seize the throne.
天津常被称为中国古代唯一有确切建城时间记载的城市:一四零四年十二月二十三日,永乐皇帝下令在一处渡口设卫筑城,当年他起兵夺位,曾由此渡河南下。
Its name means Heavenly Ford, or the Son of Heaven’s crossing. A stele dated 1550, unearthed at the old city’s south gate, says the emperor, having crossed there, named the place Tianjin and ordered a city walled and a moat dug. The garrison city stood south-west of Sancha Hekou, the Three Forks Estuary where the Grand Canal meets the Hai River, and was nicknamed the Abacus City for its long, narrow shape and four gates.
天津之名意为”天子津渡”,即天子渡河之处。据出土于天津旧城南门、立于嘉靖二十九年(一五五零年)的石碑记载,皇帝曾在此渡河,故赐名天津,并下令筑城凿池。这座卫城位于三岔河口西南——大运河与海河在此交汇——因东西长、南北短,又设四座城门,形似算盘,俗称”算盘城”。
According to the Ming Veritable Records, the garrison was placed there because the Zhigu crossing was where sea-going grain and merchant ships converged, and a proverb quoted by Visit Beijing says the Three Forks Estuary came first and Tianjin afterwards. The Grand Canal runs for more than 170 kilometres through the municipality, according to The Beijing News.
据《明太宗实录》记载,之所以在此设卫,是因为直沽乃海运粮船与商船往来的要冲;据北京旅游网引述的俗语,”先有三岔口,后有天津卫”。据《新京报》报道,大运河在天津境内流经一百七十多公里。
Nine Nations along One River
一条河畔的九国租界
After Tianjin was opened as a treaty port in 1860, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy, Belgium and Austria-Hungary all took concessions along the river. According to Visit Beijing, the British one lasted 85 years and the Austro-Hungarian only 17, and the American one was later absorbed by the British.
一八六零年天津被辟为通商口岸之后,英国、法国、美国、德国、日本、俄国、意大利、比利时与奥匈帝国先后在沿河一带设立租界。据北京旅游网介绍,英租界存续八十五年,奥匈租界仅存续十七年,而美租界后来并入了英租界。
The southern edge of the British concession was a swampy patch of ponds, filled with dredged river mud between 1919 and 1926, which became the Five Great Avenues. The 1.28-square-kilometre district holds more than 2,000 garden houses built in the 1920s and 1930s in British, Italian, French, German and Spanish styles, around 300 of them landmark buildings or celebrity residences, including homes associated with former presidents Cao Kun and Xu Shichang.
英租界南缘原是一片低洼的坑塘,一九一九年至一九二六年间利用疏浚海河挖出的淤泥填平,这里后来成为”五大道”。这片面积一点二八平方公里的街区内,保留着二十世纪二三十年代建成的两千多所花园式洋房,涵盖英、意、法、德、西班牙等不同国家的建筑风格,其中风貌建筑与名人故居约三百处,包括与曹锟、徐世昌两位前总统有关的宅邸。
The Qing Prince’s Mansion on Chongqing Road, begun in 1922 as the private house of the palace chief eunuch Xiao Dezhang and later bought by the Qing prince Zaizhen, covers 4,327 square metres and was ranked the finest Chinese-owned house in the former British concession, according to Visit Beijing.
重庆道上的庆王府始建于一九二二年,原为清末太监大总管小德张的私宅,后被清室庆亲王载振购得,占地四千三百二十七平方米;据北京旅游网介绍,它在原英租界内被列为华人楼房之冠。
On the river’s north bank, the former Italian concession, laid out from 1902, keeps more than 200 Italian-style buildings and is described by China News as Asia’s only well-preserved Italian-style architectural district.
海河北岸的原意大利租界始建于一九零二年,至今保存着两百多幢意式建筑,中新网称其为亚洲唯一保存良好的意大利风貌建筑群。
A City of Firsts and a Famous Bun
一座”第一”云集的城市,与一只出名的包子
Peiyang University opened on 2 October 1895 as China’s first modern university, and in 1900 issued what Tianjin University’s own history describes as China’s first university diploma, to law graduate Wang Chonghui.
北洋大学堂于一八九五年十月二日开学,是中国第一所近代大学;据天津大学校史介绍,该校于一九零零年颁发了中国第一张大学文凭,获得者为法科毕业生王宠惠。
The city’s best-known food, Goubuli buns, began in 1858 as a stall called Dejuhao beside the South Canal, run by Gao Guiyou, whose nickname was Gouzi, or Puppy. He was so busy that customers joked that Puppy sells buns and ignores people, and the joke became the brand name.
这座城市最出名的小吃狗不理包子,一八五八年起源于南运河畔一间名为”德聚号”的小铺,店主高贵友乳名”狗子”;他忙得顾不上与顾客说话,食客便戏称”狗子卖包子,不理人”,这句玩笑后来成了品牌名。
A Port Built on Salt Flats
一座建在盐碱滩上的港口
The development of Tianjin’s coast accelerated in December 1984, when the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, or TEDA, was established on former salt flats. Deng Xiaoping inscribed “the development zone has great promise” there in 1986; in 1994 Tianjin began developing the wider Binhai New Area around TEDA, the port and surrounding coastal districts, and in May 2006 it became a national new area, the second after Shanghai’s Pudong. It covers 2,270 square kilometres with 153 kilometres of coastline, and the TEDA authority says it holds half of the city’s economic map.
天津沿海的开发于一九八四年十二月提速,当时天津经济技术开发区(泰达)在原盐碱滩上设立。一九八六年邓小平在此题词”开发区大有希望”;一九九四年,天津开始以泰达、港口及周边沿海区域为基础开发更大范围的滨海新区,二零零六年五月,滨海新区成为国家级新区,是继上海浦东之后的第二个。新区面积二千二百七十平方公里,海岸线长一百五十三公里;据泰达管理部门介绍,它在全市经济版图中占据半壁江山。
Tianjin Port handled 579 million tonnes of cargo and 23.29 million standard containers in 2024, up 3.7 and 5.0 percent, on 147 container routes; sea-rail container traffic rose 12.0 percent to 1.375 million standard containers, according to the municipal communiqué.
据天津市统计公报显示,二零二四年天津港完成货物吞吐量五点七九亿吨、集装箱吞吐量二千三百二十九万标准箱,分别增长百分之三点七和百分之五点零,集装箱航线达一百四十七条;海铁联运完成一百三十七万五千标准箱,增长百分之十二点零。
The same communiqué puts GDP at ¥1.80243 trillion, up 5.1 percent, with services at 63.9 percent of output, per capita GDP of ¥132,143 and per capita disposable income of ¥53,581; the permanent population stood at 13.64 million, 86.01 percent of it urban.
同一份公报显示,全市GDP为一万八千零二十四点三二亿元,同比增长百分之五点一,服务业占比百分之六十三点九,人均GDP十三万二千一百四十三元,居民人均可支配收入五万三千五百八十一元;年末常住人口一千三百六十四万人,其中城镇人口占百分之八十六点零一。
Thirty Minutes by Rail
半小时的车程
Getting to Tianjin means the Beijing–Tianjin intercity railway, which opened on 1 August 2008 as China’s first 350-kilometre-an-hour line; the journey takes about 30 minutes, and the line carried 340 million passengers in its first 15 years, according to the Beijing government. Tianjin Binhai Airport, 13 kilometres from the centre, handled 20.06 million passengers in 2024, and, according to Spring Airlines’ airport guide, Tianjin was one of the departure points for the People’s Republic’s first scheduled civil aviation services on 1 August 1950.
前往天津,可乘坐二零零八年八月一日开通的京津城际铁路,这是中国第一条时速三百五十公里的高速铁路,全程约三十分钟;据北京市政府介绍,开通十五年来累计发送旅客三点四亿人次。天津滨海国际机场距市中心十三公里,二零二四年旅客吞吐量二千零六万人次;据春秋航空的机场介绍,天津是一九五零年八月一日中华人民共和国首批定期民航航班的起飞地之一。
The Tianjin Eye, a Ferris wheel 110 metres across that opened in April 2009, stands in the middle of Yongle Bridge at the Three Forks Estuary. Tianjin’s cultural tourism authority describes it as the world’s only Ferris wheel built on a bridge.
天津之眼是一座直径一百一十米的摩天轮,二零零九年四月对外开放,矗立在三岔河口永乐桥的中央。据天津市文旅资讯服务系统介绍,它是世界上唯一一座建在桥上的摩天轮。
