Chongwenmen is the name of a gate that was once part of Beijing's

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 city wall

Beijing city wall

The city wall of Beijing was a fortification built around 1435. It was 23.5 km long. The thickness at ground level was 20m and the top 12m. The wall was 15m high, and it had nine gates. This wall stood for nearly 530 years, but in 1965 it was removed to give way to 2nd Ring Road and the loop...

. The gate stood in the southeastern part of Beijing's inner city, immediately south of the old Beijing Legation Quarter

Beijing Legation Quarter

The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Peking where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In Chinese, the area is known as Dōng jiāomín xiàng , which is the name of the hutong running through the area...

. In the 1960s, the gate was torn down to make room for Beijing's second ring road

2nd Ring Road (Beijing)

Encircling the centre of Beijing, the 2nd Ring Road is just a few kilometres away from the city centre and is a convenient alternative road to avoid congestion there. One can divide the road into two parts: the original ring road , and the newly extended ring road...

. It has given its name to Chongwen District

Chongwen District

Chongwen is a former district of the Municipality of Beijing, located relatively southeast to the city center , and was situated between Yongdingmen and Qianmen. It spanned an area of 16.46 square kilometers. It bordered Dongcheng District to the north, Fengtai District to the south, Chaoyang to...

 of Beijing municipality. Today, Chongwenmen is a transport node in Beijing as well as the name of a station

Chongwenmen Station

Chongwenmen Station is an interchange station on Line 2 and Line 5 of the Beijing Subway....

 on Lines 2

Line 2, Beijing Subway

Line 2 of the Beijing Subway is a rapid transit rail line that runs in a rectangular loop around the city centre. It traces the Ming Dynasty inner city wall, which was demolished and paved over by the 2nd Ring Road and Qianmen Avenue. It is second oldest and busiest of Beijing's subway lines and...

 and 5

Line 5, Beijing Subway

Line 5 of the Beijing Subway was Beijing's first subway with a north-south route. It runs for 27.6 km, in a near straight line, just east of the city centre from Tiantongyuan North in Changping District to Songjiazhuang in Fengtai District. It entered into operation on October 2007. Line...

 of the Beijing Subway

Beijing Subway

The Beijing Subway is a rapid transit rail network that serves the urban and suburban districts of Beijing municipality. It is owned by the city of Beijing and has two operators, the wholly state owned Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Corp., which operates 12 lines, and the Beijing MTR...

.

During the Yuan dynasty

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

, the gate was called Wenmingmen (文明門). Because the residence of the Mongol prince Hada was located close by, the gate was also popularly known as Hadamen (哈達門; 哈大門) or Hademen (哈德門). The name Hademen survived well into the twentieth century, and was even the name of a popular cigarette

Cigarette

A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...

brand. The Hademen Hotel now overlooks where the gate once stood.