The importance of a square is based on the ancient Chinese belief that the earth is a square while heaven is a sphere. Everything was built with this in mind, palaces, temples, residences and even entire towns. More recently, defensive walls have given way to ring roads.
Ring roads are roads that surround a town and are usually lined with residential housing.
Large gates are not readily found anymore, and temples, pagodas can be found within historical areas. Housing is now comprised of large standardized apartment complexes crowded together to get optimum use of the land. The large coastal towns, however, have attempted to broaden their architectural styles from just monotonous designs to international-styles. AsianInfo.org - All Rights Reserved.