Why it looks like this

Harbin barely existed until Russia, building a shortcut of the Trans-Siberian railway across Manchuria, chose this crossing of the Songhua River in 1898. Russian engineers laid out the town: the cobbled Central Street (Zhongyang Dajie) with its art-nouveau facades, the onion domes of St Sophia cathedral, and districts angled to the railway lines.

Waves of Russian refugees after 1917 made it briefly the largest Russian city outside Russia. The map still shows its origin: the historic quarters cluster by the river and the rail corridor, with the later Chinese city gridded around them.