Shanghai Water Gate Museum

The Shanghai Water Gate Museum is a museum in Shanghai, China. It lets people see a water gate from the old path of the Wusong River (today's Suzhou Creek) from 700 years ago. It is free.

The gate itself is an important historical and cultural place protected by China's national government.

Name
The museum's full name the . Its Chinese name is the Shánghǎi Yuándài Shuǐzhá Yízhǐ Bówùguǎn. It is written as  in the older writing used on Hong Kong and Taiwan and  in the easier writing used on the mainland.

Location
The museum is at 619 West Yanchang Road  in Shanghai's Putuo District. It's at the corner of West Yangchang and Zhidan Roads.

History
Ren Renfa and his workers built the water gate on the Wusong River around 1300 during the Yuan Dynasty. Today, Suzhou Creek is small and less important than the Huangpu River, but it used to be bigger and more important for all the cities between Suzhou and the East China Sea. Dirt and sand in the river ("silt") slowly made it narrower and narrower. People built the water gate to help stop and wash away some of the dirt. The river changed its path to the south, the old gate became covered with dirt, and people forgot where it was.

Workers found the water gate in May 2001 while they were building new apartment buildings in the area. Once they understood that the stone their machines hit was a very old building, archaeologists came to look at it. The archaeologists started digging in January 2004 and finished in May 2006.

Workers started building the museum in November 2009 and finished on December 31st, 2012.

Notes

Other websites
 《上海元代水闸遗址博物馆》 on Baidu Baike 

Category:Buildings and structures in Shanghai