Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Shunyi district is approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles) northeast of the CBD, straddling
the Sixth Ring Road. Beijing Capital International Airport is encircled by Shunyi, but re-
sponsibility for this vital structure lies in the hands of a much more established district,
Chaoyang.
Like the inner city, Shunyi's suburban area is also extremely flat. The entire district cov-
ers 1,020 square kilometers (394 square miles). Of this, expats tend to live in a minute por-
tion of territory called Tianzhu town, one of the seven municipal areas of Shunyi. Tian-
zhu town is at the southwest corner of Shunyi and makes up just 13 square kilometers (8
square miles) of the entire district. The expat population occupies even less of this, with
most homes and businesses located along both sides of the border that separates Chaoyang
and Shunyi districts. The border here is etched by the Wenyu River, and most of the expat
resources are on the Shunyi side of the river—such as shopping complexes and internation-
al medical clinics. However, many international schools and housing communities sit on the
Chaoyang side of the river. Technically they are in Chaoyang, and if you do a specific In-
ternet search for Shunyi facilities, you'll miss many of these, but in daily chit-chat, people
living here or going to school here are still generally described as being “out in Shunyi.” So
for the simplicity of this chapter we'll maintain the status quo.
Shunyi isn't just all about the expat community. It is also an important zone for various
industries, including Air China, which has its behemoth head office in Tianzhu town, and
Hyundai, which set up its China head office and factory not far south of Shunyi subway
station.
Shunyi subway station is where the real core of Shunyi is, the “village” from which the
province took its name. Though this part of the district feels almost like a city itself, expats
don't spend a lot of time here and generally prefer to head into the center of the city for
shopping.
Housing
In the near future there may be cheaper options for apartments in Shunyi, something more
local than the current selection, but for now, most accommodation styles and budgets align
with those of expatriates who live comfortably on generous packages from their compan-
