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"Zero Point" for China's Highways

A bronze “Zero Point” sign installed near the Zhengyangmen Gate in Tian’anmen Square on September 24 symbolizes the starting point of all of China’s major highways and is open to the public, along with the recently renovated Zhengyangmen Gate.

The elaborately designed and meaningful sign immediately attracted lots of attention.

As of 2005, China’s highways totalled 1.93 million kilometres in length. Superhighways, non-existent just 17 years ago, now span 41,000 kilometres of territory, ranking China second in the world. Eleven of the country’s national-level highways go through in Beijing and seven major superhighways radiate from China’s capital city. With such a tight conjunction of highways, setting up a sign to mark the starting point of the country’s major highways was considered very necessary. Many countries in the world use zero points to symbolize the starting point of a state or country’s major roads. Three methods have been used to name national-level highways in China. The number “1” at the beginning of a road number means the highway radiates from Beijing, but the concrete centre of the radiation has been unsettled all along. The proposal to set up a Zero Point sign won the approval of the State Council in 2001, and the idea was broadly supported by the public. Eventually, the Sifangshen sign, the work of a professor of Tsinghua University was selected from 1,024 works submitted.

Upon seeing the sign, Feng Zhenglin, vice-head of the Ministry of Communications of the People’s Republic of China, said, “That is the most beautiful Zero Point sign I’ve seen; it fully presents our time-honoured culture and the development of highways in China.”

The Zero Point sign was designed as a square, but contains a wheel-like ring within, coinciding with the traditional Chinese conception of “round sky, square earth” and the aesthetics of symmetry. The main pattern of the sign includes the names qinglong (cyan dragon), baihu (white tiger), zhuque (red sparrow) and xuanwu (black tortoise and snake), four animals, and orientations of dong (east), xi (west), nan (south) and bei (north) in Chinese seal characters. At the core, an Arabic number “0” is surrounded by “Zero Point of Highways, China” in English and Chinese so they can be easily understood by tourists from around the world.

Qinglong, baihu, zhuque and xuanwu are also the names of four constellations in Chinese traditional culture, which represent the four poles and which were apotheosized as the sifangshen or Silin in Chinese (the four gods representing the four directions). The early images of the four gods can be traced back to the Xia and Shang dynasties, and finally became a complete system representing the four directions during the Han Dynasty. They are more commonly used as decorative patterns in tile in architecture. The four animal images in the Zero Point sign derive from the Han Dynasty.

Around the wheel-like ring, there are 64 dots, which represent the 64 directions in traditional Chinese culture, along with radiating lines that symbolize China’s convenient communications net.

The Sifangshen Zero Point of highways defines the starting point of China’s major highways, while bringing a new human landscape to the capital city.