The water behind the rock bar

In Chongqing a long, narrow piece of water separated from the main channel by a bar of rock is called a hao, and the current in it runs more gently than in the shipping channel. Longmenhao is the hao off Shangxinjie on the south bank; the gap in the bar is the Dragon Gate, and the old wharf divides the water into an upper hao and a lower hao. The names survived as the communities of Shanghao and Xiahao. The road along the water is now part of Nanbin Road, where the old scene of Longmenhao Moon was recut when the Dongshuimen bridge was built.

In 1929, when Chongqing became a city, a south-bank office was set up at Xuantanmiao with four wards: Nanchengping, Haitangxi, Longmenhao and Danzishi. In 1941 the eleventh district was reorganised into six towns, among them Longmen upper hao and Longmen lower hao. When the fifth and sixth districts were merged in 1952 the district government sat at Danzishi and then moved to Longmenhao in December, and in October 1955 the fifth district took the name Nan'an. The district that grew from those wards now has eight subdistricts and seven towns, and Longmenhao is one of them. The name of the water had become the name of an administration.

The port opened in 1891 and the customs house was set up near Chaotianmen; after the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 Britain and France each took ground on the river. France built a naval dock and barracks near Danzishi on this bank in 1901, Russia built a residence on Pipa Mountain in 1902, and Germany a legation on Nanshan in 1912. The allied diplomatic sites of the war years, among them the Soviet and French embassy sites, the American naval attaché's office and the French naval barracks, are national protected sites in the district. The Danzishi French concession street is a short way along the bank from Longmenhao, and the ferry to Danzishi still runs.