As night falls, have you ever been thinking about traveling around an area where you can listen to the music, drink a cup of coffee and watch the views outside the window? It is a place where you can also hear the voice of your heart and slow your pace of living to experience the magic of life.

Sanlitun Bar Street is the most famous bar street in Beijing, located east of Sanlitun North Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing and east of the Worker’s Stadium. The specialty of the street is the large number of bars, among which the first bar was built in 1983. Since the street is inside the embassy area, many foreigners love coming here to drink and relax.

The opening hours of the bar street last from the day’s evening to the following day’s early morning. In daytime this bar street appears pale, but at night especially after 9 o’clock, it enters the most flourishing time of the day. Foreigners come to this street to enjoy drinking and native Chinese come here to make new friends with those from overseas.

History

Where did the name Sanlitun come from? Sanlitun was originally a farmhouse about 1.5 km (3 lis; li is a Chinese measure unit and one li is equal to 0.5 km) away from the city walls of Beijing. Therefore, it was named Sanlitun, which means three-li farmhouse. Today’s Sanlitun has totally left its history behind and turned into a fashionable holy land for tourists from both China and abroad. In the vicinity of Sanlitun there were once the tombs of Gongqiwang and Dorgon, but they have been become ruins after the changes of time. In 1952, three universities including Beijing Dancing Academy moved to this area. In the middle and late 1950s, Beijing entered the large scale urbanization, and so lots of villagers moved to this place to build the “Happy Village”. Gradually, residents living here increasingly grew and even three middle schools, one elementary school and Chaoyang Hospital were built afterward. In 1960, New China’s first premier Zhou Enlai regarded this area as the second embassy area to build. Therefore, Sanlitun became even more prosperous since then. Later, the first bar opened up on the south street of Sanlitun and the first bar on the north street also began welcoming guests in 1995. Since then, the bar street has become even more prosperous.