The larger eastern area mainly contains high-rise residential apartment buildings and in its centre lies the Zhujiang park.

Its core area, which the government designated as the city's new axis of development, comprises continuous open plazas which extends approximately 1.5km from Huangpu Avenue to the Pearl River.

Private companies however, were reluctant to move in due to the poor traffic connection and a lack of other amenities at that time.

Eventually in 2003 the government carried out a planning review of the area, when some major adjustments were made including more public facilities and transport infrastructure being incorporated.

The adjacent Haixinsha island was chosen as the venue of the opening ceremony, as a result the area attracted large investment from the government and property developers.