"Downtown," in English, means city center, usually the central business area in a city such as Chicago. Usually, there is one downtown in an American city while more business centers and commercial centers are spreaded to suburbs and satellite towns around a large city. In China, downtown is still the oldest place where people live or do business. However, a Chinese city usually have mutliple downtowns due to its large population. For example, Shanghai has at least three downtowns with one as the biggest. In Shanghai, there are centers of the Bund (Nanjing Road), Xujiahui, Sichuan Rd, Jing'an, Hongqiao and several smaller centers. Businesses also spread over various centers. For example, Citibank has an office in the Bund, while Google chose an office in Jing'an. Depending on what kind of purpose you have in visiting Chinese cities, you may select a hotel that is convenient for your activities. For example, if you visit Shanghai for tour, you can virtually stay in anywhere (any center). If you come for business, you should select to live in a center where your business meetings usually take place. If you come for short term study, you should live close to where the school is. You can't simply say, I want to live in a downtown area, because there are multiple ones.

The Downtown Backpackers Accommodation of Beijing, our own hostel, gets its name "downtown" to reflect the history. This place is in the heart of old Beijing and still close to Tian'anmen (Forbidden City) and shopping areas of Wangfujing or Xidan.