Discover Shenzhen
Window of the World
世界之窗
A 1990s theme park of scale-model world landmarks - a 108m Eiffel Tower, a shrunken Angkor Wat, a Manhattan skyline - which is both an attraction and an artefact of how China pictured the outside world as it opened up.
The story
What makes this place special
Window of the World opened on the evening of 18 June 1994 in the Overseas Chinese Town district of Nanshan, after construction began in July 1991 and work by more than a thousand architects, landscape designers, artists and sculptors. It covers about 480,000 square metres. It belongs to a particular moment: a park built so that Chinese citizens who could not easily travel abroad could see the world's monuments in one afternoon, which is now a period piece in itself.
What you’ll discover
Eight zones — World Square, Asia, Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Americas, a sculpture garden and an 'International Street' — connected by paths and a small train. World Square at the entrance holds ten copies of famous sculptures and functions as the performance arena. The models are at mixed scales; a reduced Eiffel Tower dominates the skyline and can be ascended for a view over the park. Expect a long, hot day of walking between reproductions, with scheduled shows and an evening performance.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- This is a theme park, not a sight, and it takes a full afternoon or longer. If your time in Shenzhen is short, OCT-LOFT next door and the Shenzhen Museum are better uses of it.
- Go late in the day. The park is largely unshaded, Shenzhen afternoons are brutal, and the evening performance and the lit models are the best of it.
- Use the internal train rather than walking the whole circuit. The distances between zones are much greater than the map suggests.
- Go up the Eiffel Tower copy early rather than at the end — it is the one good overview of the park and the queue builds through the day.
- It is on metro Line 1 and 2 at Window of the World station, directly connected, so there is no reason to drive.
When to come
Mid-afternoon into the evening, for the heat and for the lit models and the night show. Avoid public holidays, when it is one of the busiest parks in the city.
Getting around
Reasonable. The park is largely flat with wide paved paths, and the internal train and shuttle make the distances manageable from a wheelchair; accessible toilets exist. Individual attractions vary — several models are climbed by steps, and the Eiffel Tower copy's upper level and some of the walk-through exhibits are not step-free. A bad knee should plan to use the train.
Worth knowing before you go
The evening ticket plus the summer beer festival is the way locals do it - the models are lit and the heat has gone.
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