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Shantou: arcades, emigrant houses, and an island

Shantou never had a city wall; what it has is a treaty port and the marks of emigration. Six national-level monuments, the arcade grid of Little Park as the sample of the type, the Chen Cihong Residence at Longdu in Chenghai, and Nan’ao, which wants a day of its own.

The spots, at a glance

Names link to the Chinese entry pages, where the history, the people and the craft are set out section by section. This English page is the index edition: the status, one line on what it is, and a suggested time.

Spot	Status	In one line	Time
Little Park Treaty-Port Quarter 小公园开埠区	Provincial historic district	Arcades ring a memorial pavilion of 1934; five avenues radiate from it like a fan	2 hr
Chen Cihong Residence 陈慈黉故居	Provincial, 4A	A four-horses-drawing-a-carriage plan skinned with Nanyang tiles and Western façades; 506 rooms	2 hr + travel
Zhanglin Old Port 樟林古港	—	Where the red-head junks sailed from; a Jiaqing-era wharf was excavated here in 2017	1 hr + travel
Wenguang Pagoda 文光塔	National, 7th batch	A seven-storey stone pagoda, 42 m tall, in Chaoyang’s Miancheng; the gallery can be climbed	1 hr + travel
Qilu Fort 崎碌炮台	National, 7th batch	Known as the stone fort, built in 1874 on Fang Yao’s memorial, rammed from lime-sand-clay	1 hr
Eastern Expedition Headquarters 东征军总指挥部, 政治部旧址	National, 7th batch	Two small European-style red-brick blocks; Zhou Enlai worked in the east one in 1925	40 min
Old Customs House 潮海关旧址	National, 8th batch	Five structures including the clock tower, the last surviving group of its kind in the city	1 hr
Central Red Transport Line Site 中央红色交通线旧址	National, 8th batch	Shantou was the relay on the underground route that ran from Shanghai to the Jiangxi Soviet in the 1930s	40 min
Dadian Patriarch Pagoda 大颠祖师塔	National, 8th batch	A Tang bell-shaped tomb pagoda, also called the Tongue Mirror Pagoda; the oldest of its kind here	Half day incl. travel
Nan’ao Island 南澳岛	—	Guangdong’s only island county: coastal defence works and fishing villages; a full day for the return trip	1 day
Queshi 礐石	4A	Forty-three peaks on the south shore of the inner bay; the 1,200-metre Nineteen Grottoes; Piaoran Pavilion looks over the bay	Half day
Lotus Peak 莲花峰	—	A coastal stone peak at Haimen; legend has it Wen Tianxiang climbed here to look for the boy emperor’s boat	Half day + travel
Dahao Walled Town 达濠古城	—	Built in 1717, 0.014 km² in area, walls 5.3 m high and 1.35 m thick	30 min
Mayu Island 妈屿岛	—	A small island at the harbour mouth with two Mazu temples; the customs post of 1860 stood on it	1 hr + travel

Times are this site’s own estimate, not an official figure. Status follows the national and provincial monument lists.

What to eat

Beef hotpot：Beef killed, cut and sold the same day, dipped in clear stock for seconds only. A local standard now requires beef content above 90 per cent in the meatballs.
Fish rice：Horse mackerel, spotted sardine and similar cooked in salt water and chilled; a layer of aspic sets inside the skin. Served with Puning bean paste.
Raw-cured seafood：Crab, mantis shrimp, shrimp and oysters cured raw — what locals call poison, meaning you cannot stop.
Braised lion-head goose：Dozens of spices and herbs in the stock; meat, liver, feet and wings as a mixed plate.
Dahao fish balls：Fish from the Haojiang harbour pounded into balls springy enough to bounce like a ping-pong ball; a national geographical-indication product.
Everyday breadth：A bowl of white congee with pickles, preserved radish, olive greens and thin-shelled mussels; a hundred kinds of kueh; rice rolls, pork-trotter rice, beef-brisket rice, dry noodles, satay noodles, claypot congee.

A clear-broth beef hotpot ringed with plates of freshly sliced raw beef — Beef hotpot: beef killed, cut and sold the same day, dipped in clear stock for seconds; the ring around the pot is raw beef, cut by part. Photo NAN LIU, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Fish rice: whole fish boiled in salt water and left to cool, a layer of aspic setting under the skin; eaten with Puning bean paste. Source: Sohu account, permission pending.

A bowl of beef-ball kway teow in clear broth — Beef-ball kway teow: clear broth, balls, rice noodles, a spoon of satay or chilli sauce. Photo N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

White boiled fish balls on a steel tray — Fish balls from Dahao, pounded until they bounce like a ping-pong ball. Photo Cathiniamoa, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Sliced braised goose on a plate with a dipping sauce — Braised goose: lion-head geese, each shop with its own master stock; meat, liver, feet and wings plated separately. The photo is a Chiu Chow restaurant’s sliced goose. Photo Alpha, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A raw-cured crab cut into pieces in a soy and chilli liquor — Raw-cured crab: cut up, cured in soy, garlic and chilli, eaten raw. Locals call it poison, meaning you cannot stop. Photo Clarayyt, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Four Teochew kueh, white ones and one pink — Kueh: rice batter skins steamed translucent, fillings sweet or savoury; the pink one is a peach kueh. Photo Jpatokal, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Four bowls of white porridge with plates of braised meat, squid and pickles — White porridge with its side dishes: braised pork, squid, pickles, peanuts. Photo Walter Lim, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Getting there, and where to stay

Stay around Little Park: walkable at night, close to everything in the old city.
Shantou station is in the city itself; since the Shantou connecting line opened on 31 December 2018, high-speed trains run into the centre.
Chaoshan station is at Shaxi in Chaozhou, about twenty-eight kilometres away — if time is short, go to Shantou station instead.

The Chinese page of this city carries the full detail: the eight views, routes by interest, and the entries each spot links to.