Chinese symbol for “downtown”
市区
shì qū
Traditional: 市區
urban district; downtown; city center
The closest CC-CEDICT match for downtown is 市区 (shì qū), defined as: urban district; downtown; city center.
Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.
Characters and stroke order
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “downtown”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 市中心 | shì zhōng xīn | city center; downtown |
| 商业区 (商業區) | shāng yè qū | business district; downtown |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 市区.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 城市 | chéng shì | city; town; measure word: 座 (zuò) |
| 市场 (市場) | shì chǎng | marketplace; market; bazaar; (economics) market |
| 市长 (市長) | shì zhǎng | mayor |
| 上市 | shàng shì | to hit the market (of a new product); to float (a company on the stock market) |
| 市民 | shì mín | city resident; townspeople |
| 地区 (地區) | dì qū | region; area (informal or geographical term); prefecture (in China's administrative system) |
| 区域 (區域) | qū yù | area; region |
| 社区 (社區) | shè qū | community; neighborhood |
See also: Japanese symbol for “downtown”.
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.