Hutong
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Hutongs ( Chinese 衚衕 / 胡同 , Pinyin hútong ) denote on the one hand narrow traditional alleys in northern China, on the other hand a form of residential areas in traditional Chinese style with inner courtyards ( 中國 合 院 式 傳統 建築 / 中国 合 院 式 ende that dominated until the 1990s建筑 ) in Beijing .
Hutong is a word of Mongolian origin ( Mongolian hottog ), which means something like source , as the inhabitants of these hutongs often lived near a well.
In Beijing's hutongs you can still see the traditional courtyards (e.g. 四合院 , Sìhéyuàn ). In 2005, there were about three thousand hutongs in Beijing, which were home to almost half of the city's residents. However, due to the redesign of the city center, they are becoming increasingly rare. In the area of a hutong with traditionally mostly ground floor buildings, significantly more apartments can be accommodated in modern multi-storey building methods. It is foreseeable that in a few years there will be hardly any original hutongs in the city center, but that they will probably soon be open to the public as a museum village. On the other hand, there is a tendency to build new hutongs in the old style or to keep old hutongs.
