Beijing's CBD: Guide to Living Here

Beijing's Central Business District, or CBD (中央商务区 in Chinese, Zhōngyāng shāngwù qū in Pinyin), is the city's largest, most international center of commerce. Located between East Second and Third Ring Roads and stretching from Chaoyangmen to Guomao, the CBD lies at the heart of Chaoyang District and downtown itself.

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Hundreds of multinational companies and financial institutions have offices in the CBD, including Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Motorola, Ford, UBS, PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, and a great many more. Also calling this area home are a number of world-class shopping malls (China World Trade Center Mall, Guiyou Building, and more) and five-star hotels and gleaming office buildings.

Beijing's CBD is home to many of the executives living and working in Beijing, with both a high cost and a high quality of living on offer. The elites living in the CBD tend to hold to the standard of "high income, high consumption, and high class" in all aspects of their lifestyles. The are plenty of Western dining and shopping options in the CBD, and for families the large collection of international schools in the Lufthansa Area are little more than a stone's throw away.

Living Arrangements

You'll find no villas in the CBD; the living accommodations in this dense part of town are limited to apartments, apartments, and more apartments. With a good sampling of luxurious high end apartments to top off the collection.

Because of the demand for living space here, prices in the CBD tend not to be cheap, and at the higher end, you pay for what you get, with some truly impressive apartments commanding truly impressive prices.

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Like most Westernized apartment complexes in Beijing, here you can expect to find:

Central, government-mandated parks and green space
Exercise facilities and fitness gyms (not always open, however)
Convenience stores and shops
Guardhouses with regular patrols

The least expensive rent you're liable to find in the CBD is ¥8,000, for a studio apartment; the heart of downtown is not the place to make camp if you're on a tight budget. However, if you're on executive pay and can take advantage of the area's more top-shelf accommodations, you'll find that these can be up in excess - in the extreme cases - of ¥320,000. Normally, expect to pay monthly rents of ¥10,000 to ¥40,000 living in Beijing's Central Business District.

Local Amenities

The CBD offers a wide range of amenities for Westerners, including:

Western supermarkets BHG, Carrefour, CenturyMart, and Wal-Mart
Dining options including French, American, Thai, Italian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern restaurants
Fast food options such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Burger King (one of the few in Beijing), sandwich shop Subway, pizza chain Pizza Hut, and ice cream shops like Häagen-Dazs, Coldstone, and Dairy Queen
Cafés and coffee shops like Starbucks, Costa Coffee, UBC, Pacific Coffee, Blend Coffee, Trend's Lounge, Esquire's Coffee, the Friends, Lavazza, and more
Bars, lounges, and nightclubs including Xiu and China Bar (in the Park Hyatt), Looong Bar, Twilight, Havana Bar (in Fortune Plaza), Atmosphere (on the 80th floor of the China World Summit Building Wing 1), and many more
The China World Trade Center Mall, Fortune Plaza Mall, Yintai Center, and a plethora of shopping options with everything from clothing to computers for sale
Shin Kong Place is one particularly large CBD mall, with 90 top international brands (and 938 different brands for sale altogether). Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Hugo Boss, and Coach, among many others, keep flagship stores in Shin Kong Place

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Office buildings including the Central World Trade Center, China World Trade Center, Jianwai SOHO, China Merchants Building, Aiweike Building, International Financial Center, Beijing Exchange Building, Win Ka Center, and more

The CBD's cornucopia of shopping, dining, and nightlife options cover the gamut from the standard brands and fast food available to those of middle class means to those catering exclusively to the financially well-off. With a very wide selection of choices to pick from, amenities in the CBD feature something for just about everyone.

Education

There are few schools serving international schools in the CBD, though the ones that are present include:

Australian International School Beijing

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Beijing International School
Eton Bilingual School
Eton International School
Fangcaodi Primary School

However, each of these has drawbacks - AISB and BIS are located in the easternmost tip of the CBD, out near the fifth ring; the chain Eton schools have mixed reviews among both parents and educators; and Fangcaodi offers instruction in Chinese only, and has become even more difficult to communicate with and get into following an on-campus accident several years back. Only the plus side, Fangcaodi offers one of the most affordable international school educations in Beijing, and is a good choice for Chinese-descent expatriates looking for an education on a budget.

Most families residing in the CBD will elect to send their children north to the Lufthansa Area and its many schools there (or south to Shuangjing's BCIS).

Main article: International Schools in Beijing: The School Guide

Location

The Central Business District is situated to the east of the physical center of Beijing, but constitutes the heart of Beijing's real "downtown." It primarily lies between Second and Third Ring Roads, though stretches out to midway between the Fourth and Fifth Rings to the east.

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Due to its very central location, the CBD provides relatively easy access to most parts of Beijing worth visiting, including the city's many shopping areas, restaurants, nightlife venues, and tourist attractions. While not home to many schools directly, the CBD is close enough to many of Beijing's international schools that it makes for an easy commute for the children of families residing here.

Verdict

One of the most popular choices of residence for Beijing expatriates and expatriate families, the CBD offers the opportunity to be close to the center of the action, nearby to the office (if you're working downtown), and very near to Western amenities.

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While perhaps not as ideal a choice for expatriate families as Lido, the Lufthansa Area, or Shunyi are, Beijing's Central Business District makes an excellent choice of residence for individuals wanting convenience and easy access to entertainment, shopping, nightlife, and work, and makes a great choice for many expatriate singles.

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