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The old Chaoshan Customs buildings

What survives of the customs house opened at Shantou when the port was forced open in 1860. Five buildings stand in two districts, and the clock tower is the easiest of them to recognise.

What to see文化看點

Shantou was opened as a treaty port in 1860 and the Chaoshan customs house was set up the same year, the predecessor of the present Shantou customs. The five buildings stand in Jinping and Haojiang districts and were put up between 1898 and 1922; the clock tower is the easiest to pick out. What they show is the physical trace of the foreign inspectorate: offices, housing and the commissioner’s residence kept apart, and rank expressed in where the housing stood and how big it was.

History歷史

Five survive: the customs clock tower, the senior assistants’ quarters, the Chinese junior assistants’ quarters, the deputy commissioner’s residence on Waima Road and the deputy commissioner’s residence at Queshi, built between 1898 and 1922. They were listed in 2019 in the eighth batch of national protected sites.

Craft工藝

All five are modern Western buildings: fair-faced brick walls, arched openings, pitched roofs, the detailing changing with the date of building. They are one of the few well-preserved groups of modern Western architecture in Chaoshan, and the surviving representative of what was once a large customs compound.

What to look at看什麼

• The clock tower, now the Shantou customs history museum: start here for the timeline.
• The two assistants’ quarters: the ranking inside a single service, written in the position and size of the houses.
• The deputy commissioner’s residence at Queshi: across the water, arrange it separately.

Visiting參觀提示

The five are not in one place: the tower and the two quarters are in the old city of Jinping, the Queshi building is in Haojiang. See the cluster first, then decide whether to cross the water.

Tickets and opening Some of the buildings are in office and residential use and are not open; the exteriors can be seen at any time and the tower is the easiest to find. Interior visits are not announced.

Related entries對應詞條

Migration and qiaopi letters, the glossary, the travel index.

The foreign inspectorate洋關制度

The customs service of modern China had one peculiar feature: from the 1850s its administration was run by foreign inspectors-general. The Chinese government kept sovereignty and the revenue, but day-to-day operation was in foreign hands. The Chaoshan customs house was a product of that arrangement.

So the buildings are Western in form and port-administrative in function: the tower kept time, the quarters kept people, the commissioner’s residence kept rank. Five buildings are an administrative hierarchy turned into space.

How the five divide五處怎麼分

• The customs clock tower, in Jinping, now the Shantou customs history museum: start here for the timeline.
• The senior assistants’ quarters and the Chinese junior assistants’ quarters, both inside the same grounds, in different positions and of different size — the ranking of one service written on its houses.
• The deputy commissioner’s residence on Waima Road, in Jinping.
• The deputy commissioner’s residence at Queshi, in Haojiang, across the water, arranged separately.

All five date from 1898 to 1922 and form one of the few well-preserved groups of modern Western architecture in Chaoshan, and the surviving representative of a customs compound that was once much larger.

Details細部圖錄

On the same trip同城順路

• Qilu fort — also in Jinping, a short drive.
• The Eastern Expedition headquarters — on the Waima Road line.
• The Xiaogongyuan port-opening district — walkable.

Order them by map and by your own hours; this only says what is on the way to what.

Sources來源

Nanfang Plus, ‘Three more added: which of Shantou’s six national protected sites is the fairest’; the Shantou city government portal, ‘On the red route, opening the memory of Shantou’. Both carry the composition, the dates and the listing batch of the five buildings, the phrase ‘well-preserved modern Western architecture’, and the customs history museum.

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Last revised: 5 November 2026