Five Great Avenues

Tianjin held foreign concessions from the 1860s, and the Five Great Avenues district in the former British concession was built up in the 1920s and 1930s with mansions in British, French, Italian, German and Spanish styles, around two thousand of them, many for Chinese officials, warlords and businessmen who wanted the legal protection of concession territory. The result is a grid of quiet tree-lined streets that looks nothing like the rest of northern China. Some houses are open as museums, horse carriages tour the streets, and the Minyuan stadium at the district's edge has been redeveloped with cafés. The neighbouring Italian concession retains a piazza and its own churches.

What you actually see

• The mansion streets - two thousand houses in European styles on quiet avenues.
• The museum houses - a few interiors open to visitors.
• The Minyuan precinct - the redeveloped stadium with cafés and shops.
• The Italian concession - a separate quarter of piazzas and churches nearby.

When to go

April to May and September to October, when the tree-lined streets are at their best; summer is hot and humid, winter cold and grey. Weekends bring domestic tourists and carriage traffic. Most houses are private and seen from outside.

Honest expectations

The great majority of the buildings are private residences or offices and cannot be entered. Interpretation on the street is limited and mostly in Chinese. The carriage rides are touristic and short.

Nearby

The Italian concession and the Hai River lie north; Porcelain House is east.