Xinghai Square is located in the southern beach scenic area of Dalian to the north of Xinghai Park and Xinghai Bay. It covers 1.1 million square meters, which is the largest city square in Asia. Xinghai Square was completed on June 30, 1997, built for celebrating the return of Hong Kong.

To the north, 500 meters away from Central Avenue, is the Exposition Center. To the south is the square of hundred-year city sculpting, 500 meters away from the blue ocean. Red bricks are on the ground of Central Avenue, with fresh green grass on both sides. There are lots of stone lamp poles that look like navigation lights distributed every 20 meters, which means China is oriented to the ocean and internationally recognized.

The central part of Xinghai Square covers 45,000 square meters. It has the largest white marble pillar with a diameter of 1.997 meters memorializing Hong Kong’s return date. There are nine dragons on the pedestal and column trunk of the marble pillars, which means all people from nine states (in ancient times, China was divided into nine states) of China are descendants of the dragon. A 2.3-meter “Wangtianhou” sits on the top of the marble pillar, shining with golden light. Each of the five white marble columns around the marble pillar lifts a palace lamp.

The design of the square center emulates the Temple of Heaven’s Circular Mound Altar in Beijing, which is made up with 999 Sichun cipolin, with giant yellow five-pointed stars on the periphery. These two colors, red and yellow, symbolize the descendants of the emperors Yan and Huang (Yan and Huang are two Chinese emperors in ancient times who led Chinese people to defeat the powerful north tribe and begin opulent lives around 5,000 years ago). “Yan” in Chinese means red. “Huang” has the same pronunciation with “yellow” so Chinese people always use red and yellow to represent the descendants of these two emperors. The Chinese Era (a combination of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches), 24 solar terms and 12 Chinese zodiacs are carved on the cipolin. The diameter of the square’s inner circle is 199.9 meters, and the excircle’s diameter is 239.9 meters. This means that Dalian will have its 500th birthday in 2399.

Xinghai Square is encircled by a giant musical fountain and nine tripods of various shapes and forms. Each has a large Chinese character on it written in Wei Dynasty (AD 220-265) handwriting. All the characters make up one sentence: “Long live the great unity of the Chinese people.” Walk to the south from the central part and you can see the “ancient status of the city.” The end of it features a giant book facing the spacious ocean, meaning that Dalian has started a new page after hundreds of years. Correspondingly, the Xinghai exhibition center is located to the north of the central square. It is a modern architecture combining expos, conventions, transactions, finance and entertainment.