Dragon Gate

The Dragon Gate is a traditional Chinese paifang arch marking the Grant Avenue entrance to San Francisco's Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America, established in the 1840s. The current gate was erected in 1970 as a gift from the Republic of China, featuring green-glazed ceramic roof tiles, dragon-crowned columns, and a Chinese inscription loosely translated as 'All under heaven is for the people.' It serves as the symbolic threshold between the broader tourist corridor of Union Square and a neighborhood that has persisted as a living center of Chinese-American community life in the Bay Area despite generations of urban pressure. Stepping through it, visitors immediately encounter a dense grid of tea houses, herbal pharmacies, temple alleys, and produce markets.