Why it looks like this

Shenyang holds two imperial fingerprints. In 1625 Nurhaci made it the Manchu capital, Mukden; his palace — a smaller sibling of Beijing's Forbidden City, UNESCO-listed — still sits at the centre of the old walled town's grid, and the Qing dynasty was proclaimed here in 1636 before it conquered China.

The second city came with the railway: after 1905 the Japanese-run South Manchuria Railway laid out a new town by the station — wide avenues and round plazas like Zhongshan Square — and heavy industry followed, making Shenyang the anchor of China's industrial northeast.