The Beijing Wanfujing Book Store is historically one of the main Book Stores in the city of Beijing. Officially known as the Wanfujing Xinhua Book Store (王府井新华书店（wáng fǔ jǐng xīn huá shū diàn）it is part of the largest chain of book stores in the Peoples Republic of China, which by now has well over a 1000 stores in just about every city in the Nation today.
As the official name suggests, the chain of outlet stores is closely associated with the Xinhua - or New China News Agency, which also runs the mouthpiece international newspaper Xinhua.
Located at Wanfujing Street in the center of the old city of Beijing at only 3 blocks walking distance from the central Square of Heavenly Peace and with its front facing the popular Wanfujing Luxury Shopping Street the Wanfujing Book Store is easy to reach. As one of the older and more prominent book stores in the Central City it is well established as one of the main addresses for buying books for reading or as study materials in Beijing.
Customers browse about book shelves inside the Wanfujing Book Store in Beijing while others just squat and read. (Photo: December of 2013.)
When browsing about Beijing and in need of some good reading, a useful local travel guide or in-depth backgrounds on aspects of Chinese Culture, the Wanfujing Book Store is a good place to start your browsing.
Mind you, the Wanfujing Book Store is always busy and crowded. Catering to just about everyone on any subject, as one may have expected the store is mainly supplied with Chinese (Mandarin) language books and materials. There is however a special section for desperate Foreigners on the 3rd floor of the store. Often missed, the subterranean floor is filled with music cd's, DVD and Blue-Ray and a reasonable supply of computer games.
Depending on what exactly you were looking for you might strike gold. When done but not satisfied. Just exit into Wanfujing street and start heading north.
The other historic, popular and most useful book store is the Beijing Foreign Language Press (BFL for short) which can conveniently be found at the north end of the main shopping zone of Wanfujing.
Wanfujing Book Store - Directions / How to Get There :
As mentioned above, and as its name suggests the Wanfujing Book Store is situated inside the main shopping street in Central Beijing today, the historic Wanfujing Street. Please refer to adjacent mini-map
of the area for better understanding of the directions given.
Directions to Wanfujing Street are fairly simple as it is one of the most popular and most easily reached destinations in the central city today.
As can be determined with relative ease from the adjacent map, Wanfujing street is situated due East of the Forbidden City (Palace Museum) at a distance of only two large city blocks walking from its eastern gate, the Dong Hua Men or East Flowery Gate.
Clearly, Wanfujing Street runs from South to North and parallel to the east wall of the former Imperial Palace of the Emperors.
Focussing on the bottom of the map image one can just identify the northern parts of the enormous Square of Heavenly Peace in the bottom left (west) corner. As can be seen, Wanfujing Street is a side-street of the large (East) Eternal Peace Avenue (Dong Chang'An Jie) which runs eastward from the Square of Heavenly Peace to meet with the southern end of Wanfujing Street which runs northward from its intersection with east Eternal Peace Avenue.
Mini-map of Wanfujing Street and surrounding area's of central Beijing City. On the left (west) of the map one can see the gargantuan Forbidden City Palace complex with it's surrounding walls. Below it lies the Square of Heavenly Peace. Wanfujing Street is the street running from top to bottom through the center of the image.
To complete the quick review of the map and streets surrounding Wanfujing Street it should be noted that the first ever subway/metro line opened in Beijing runs east-to-west underneath the East Eternal Peace Avenue providing for convenient transport to your location from the various other districts of the city. In addition, in advance of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, a multitude of other subway/metro lines have opened, some of which have stations which also lie relatively near Wanfujing Shopping Street. For reference please make use of adjacent updated map of the Subway-Metro system of Beijing for 2015.
Recapping the above, directions to Beijing's most popular shopping and loitering strip are fairly easy. Simply travel to the central city by subway train or by any other means, and make your way from the nearest subway station. ∢Dummies∢ or first timers without a tourguide or map can always first find the Square of Heavenly Peace and its
