Zhengzhou's Shang site is unusual among Chinese ancient capitals because the walls and the city plan are still legible on the ground. The Zhengzhou Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau records the sequence plainly: a teacher named Han Weizhou picked up patterned sherds near his school in 1950, trial excavation began at Erligang in 1952, the site was identified in 1955, a palace and noble housing complex appeared in 1979, and inner and outer walls were traced in 1986. The layout is a strict threefold enclosure of outer city, inner city and palace city across about 25 square kilometres, with an inner wall running close to seven kilometres. The site was placed on the first national list of major historical and cultural sites in 1961 and was named among China's eight ancient capitals in 2004. A museum dedicated to it opened on 26 July 2022.
Zhengzhou's early Shang capital was rediscovered because a teacher picked up a few sherds on a walk in 1950. Its walls, three rings in all, still run through the middle of the modern city, and a new museum now stands over the dig.