Trade Fair Guide
The Pazhou complex has more than 1.62 million m² of total floor area and 620,000 m² of exhibition space — about 87 standard football pitches. For a first visit, spending an hour between leaving the metro and standing at a supplier's booth is normal. What that hour is made of, and which part of it can be cut, is taken apart below in the order you actually meet it.
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The canton fair complex is not a single building but a group of halls stretched east to west along the north bank of the Pearl River. By the China Foreign Trade Centre's official figures, total floor area exceeds 1.62 million m² and exhibition space is 620,000 m², of which 504,000 m² is indoors and 116,000 m² outdoors — the largest exhibition complex in the world.
Source: venue description published by the China Foreign Trade Centre (ciefc.com), reflecting the position after the fourth-phase project completed in 2023.
A standard 11-a-side pitch is 105 m by 68 m, or 7,140 m². 620,000 ÷ 7,140 ≈ 87, so the most intuitive answer to “how big is the Canton Fair” is: flatten all the exhibition space and it would cover about 87 standard football pitches. Counting only the 504,000 m² indoors, about 71.
Two numbers get confused and should be kept apart. 1.62 million m² is total floor area, including multi-level halls, meeting rooms, catering and support space, so converting it to football pitches distorts the picture. 620,000 m² is exhibition space, and that is the figure you can legitimately flatten and compare. Claims of “the equivalent of more than 200 football pitches” are using the floor area, which is a sleight of hand.
The practical consequence of that scale: in any one session, similar products are usually spread across more than one hall, and across different zones. Reaching the gate completes a third of the distance. The other two thirds are inside.
Hall numbers run continuously, zone by zone. If you cannot remember the zone, you cannot remember whether to walk east or west.
Halls 1 to 8 — 13 exhibition halls, 130,000 m² indoors and 30,000 m² outdoors. The heavier sections of appliances, machinery and hardware concentrate on this side.
Halls 9 to 13 — 13 exhibition halls, 128,000 m² indoors and 13,600 m² outdoors. Hardware, tools, building materials and furniture.
Halls 14 to 16 — 12 exhibition halls, 80,000 m² indoors. Motorcycles, bicycles, lighting, electrical and electronic products.
Halls 17 to 20 — 13 exhibition halls, 130,000 m² indoors and 27,000 m² outdoors. Power and electrical equipment, processing machinery, industrial automation and consumer electronics.
Hall counts and areas are compiled from the zone-by-zone figures published by the China Foreign Trade Centre. Which section sits in which zone in a given session follows that session's official layout plan.
A booth number is made up of the hall number, the floor, a row letter and the stand number. 9.2A15 means hall 9, second floor, row A, stand 15. There is one location that does not follow the numeric order: Friendship Hall 21.2, which houses the fashion accessories section and the service robot section; it is closer if you come in from the Zone D side.
Decide the zone first, then the gate. The first thing to do with a booth number is not to open a map but to see which zone the hall falls in: halls 1 to 8 mean Zone A, 9 to 13 Zone B, 14 to 16 Zone C and 17 to 20 Zone D. Get the zone wrong and the gate is wrong with it, and everything after that has to be walked again.
The four zones line up along the river: Zone A furthest west, Zone B immediately east of it, Zone C around the west side of Pazhou station, and Zone D on the north side of Xingang East Road next to Zone A. Moving between zones you can stay under cover on the air-conditioned corridors or the Pearl River promenade, but the distance is real: Zone A to Zone C is about 20 to 30 minutes on foot.
The gates around the outside of the site are numbered 1 to 8. The number is not decoration: it decides three things at once — where you pin a taxi on the map, which metro exit you come out of, and which zone you are in once you are through. These are the gates that keep appearing in the police traffic notices for the fair period and in the guides issued each session.
| Gate | Known use | Useful for |
|---|---|---|
| Gate 1 | Common drop-off point for taxis and ride-hailing; about 100 m west of the opposite side is one of the end-of-day waiting points | Arriving by taxi, leaving at the end of the day |
| Gate 2 | Self-drive entrance to Zone B, from Yuejiang Middle Road into the Zone B north plaza car park | Driving to Zone B |
| Gate 3 | Pazhou Avenue East opposite it is one of the ride-hailing waiting points at the end of the day | Getting a ride after the fair |
| Gate 4 | The walking gate nearest Exits A and B of Pazhou station on Metro Line 8, leading to Zone B | Taking the metro to Zone B |
| Gate 5 | Drop-off point for taxis and ride-hailing, with a lay-by for immediate pickup and set-down | Arriving by taxi |
| Gate 6 | The walking gate nearest Exit A of Xingang Dong station on Metro Line 8, leading to Zone A; has a lay-by for pickup and set-down | Taking the metro to Zones A and D |
| Gate 7 | Opens for exit at the end of the day, after which vehicles reach the Huanan Expressway directly via the Nanfeng East Road link | Driving or a hired car out |
| Gate 8 | Self-drive entrance to Zone A, from Yuejiang Middle Road then along Zhanchang West Road down the ramp to the underground car park or the north plaza car park | Driving to Zone A |
Which gates are open and what they are used for changes from session to session. Before you travel, check that session's exhibitor manual, the official Canton Fair app and the Guangzhou traffic police notices.
For a first visit, one sentence is enough: Zone A means Gate 6, Zone B means Gate 4. For Zone C it is actually closer to walk from Exit C of Pazhou station than to go round to Gate 4.
Taxis and ride-hailing cars may only pick up and set down at set locations during the fair. The usual pins are Gate 1 and Gate 5; elsewhere there are geofences and hard barriers, and drivers will not stop at the kerb for you. Driving is handled separately: Gate 8 for Zone A and Gate 2 for Zone B, from where you go straight into the corresponding underground or north plaza car park.
Typing “Canton Fair Complex” as the destination is the most common mistake. Navigation will pick the gate nearest to you, and that gate may not serve the zone you want. The correct form is an address with the gate in it, such as “Canton Fair Complex Gate 6” or “Canton Fair Complex Gate 8”. At the end of the day (16:00 to 19:00) ride-hailing cars move to designated pickup points; the officially published ones include the lay-by at the westward Yuejiang Middle Road bus stop opposite Gate 8, about 100 m west of the opposite side of Gate 1 on Yuejiang Middle Road heading west, Pazhou Avenue East opposite Gate 3, and Huizhan South 2nd and 3rd Roads.
The north side of the site runs along the Pearl River as Yuejiang Middle Road; the south side is the Xingang East Road arterial; the east and west ends close off along Zhanchang West Road and Huizhan East Road. The first three phases together occupy more than 800,000 m², with the fourth phase adding about 220,000 m² — roughly 1 million m² in total. At roughly 1.5 km east to west and 0.7 km north to south, one full loop of the outer roads comes to about 4.4 km.
The perimeter is derived from the officially published land area together with the east–west and north–south spans, to give a sense of scale. Actual walking is longer than a straight-line calculation because of junctions and traffic control.
What 4.4 km means: at a normal 4.5 km an hour, about 60 minutes, and that assumes you do not get lost, do not go into a hall and do not queue. It also explains the “it is right across the road but takes half an hour” experience — you cannot cut through the complex, so you walk round the outside.
For a buyer, the right way to use that distance is not to walk it but to avoid it. Pick the right gate and only the last two or three hundred metres of the 4.4 km are yours.
Three things decide whether the hour disappears: the booth number the supplier gave you, where your hotel is, and which gates are open that day. Get one of them wrong and the hour is gone. In practice the time stacks up from the five segments below.
| Stage | Typical time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Metro exit to gate | 5 to 15 min | Depends on whether the exit matches the gate number |
| Badge, check and security | 10 to 30 min | Longer on the first morning and at peak times |
| Walking inside to the target hall | 10 to 40 min | More than double when crossing zones |
| Finding the aisle and stand on the floor | 5 to 20 min | Aisles are lettered; doubling back is common |
| Total | 30 min to 1 h 45 min | Take the upper end if you pick the wrong gate or zone |
These are typical ranges that move with the session, the time of day and the crowds. They are here to help you leave enough slack when planning the day.
The way to shrink this distance is not found inside the complex but on the day before you travel. The point is to replace the part you would otherwise improvise on site with local information the supplier already has.
Ask the supplier's salesperson to send them in Chinese, and screenshot them into your phone's photo album — when the network is congested on site, an offline image is more reliable than opening a chat.
Do not wait until you are at the gate to message or call the supplier. By then you are in the crowd, where signal, language and ambient noise all slow the conversation down — and the badge counter and security queue are still ahead of you. Confirming a day early moves that half hour of waiting into your hotel room.
The complex has nowhere to leave large luggage for hours, and dragging a case through the crowds while looking for a stand is the most tiring way to spend the day. When you are handed samples at a booth, call a logistics company to collect them there and then and either return them to a warehouse or move them into a shipment — that saves an entire leg of walking. The process for bringing exhibits in, collecting on site and shipping them back out is set out separately under exhibition logistics.
QHow big is the Canton Fair complex exactly?
Officially: more than 1.62 million m² of total floor area and 620,000 m² of exhibition space, of which 504,000 m² is indoors and 116,000 m² outdoors. The complex comprises Zones A, B, C and D with 20 halls in total, plus the Canton Fair Hall and Canton Fair Tower Blocks A and B, and is the largest exhibition complex in the world. Thinking of it as one building will always mislead you, because it stretches about 1.5 km east to west along the north bank of the Pearl River.
QHow many football pitches is that?
A standard 11-a-side pitch is 105 m by 68 m, or 7,140 m². 620,000 ÷ 7,140 ≈ 87, so the exhibition space is about 87 standard pitches; counting only the 504,000 m² indoors, about 71. Note that 1.62 million m² is total floor area including multi-level and support space, and cannot be converted directly.
QHow many gates does the complex have?
The outer gates are numbered 1 to 8 and each does a different job. Gate 6 faces Exit A of Xingang Dong station on Line 8 and leads to Zone A; Gate 4 faces Exits A and B of Pazhou station and leads to Zone B; Gates 8 and 2 are the self-drive entrances for Zones A and B; Gates 1 and 5 are the usual taxi and ride-hailing drop-off points, with lay-bys at Gates 5 and 6; Gate 7 opens at the end of the day, after which vehicles join the Nanfeng East Road link to the Huanan Expressway. What each gate handles can change from session to session, so follow that session's notice.
QWhich metro exit is closest to the complex?
It depends which zone you need. For Zones A or D, take Line 8 to Xingang Dong and leave by Exit A for Gate 6. For Zone B, take Line 8 or 11 to Pazhou and leave by Exits A or B for Gate 4. For Zone C, leave Pazhou by Exit C and walk about 300 m west. All three exits are on the outer ring, and the walk from the exit is normally 5 to 15 minutes.
QWhere should a taxi be sent?
Normally Gate 1 or Gate 5, where pickup and set-down are allowed; elsewhere stopping is not permitted during the fair. Driving is separate: for Zone A pin Gate 8, from Yuejiang Middle Road then along Zhanchang West Road down the ramp to the underground car park or the north plaza car park; for Zone B pin Gate 2 and go straight into the Zone B north plaza. Writing only “Canton Fair Complex” is the easiest way to go wrong, because navigation will send you to the nearest gate and that gate may not serve your zone.
QHow far is one loop around the complex?
Reckoning from the first three phases' 800,000-plus m² plus the fourth phase's roughly 220,000 m², the site is about 1.5 km east to west and 0.7 km north to south, and one loop of the outer roads is about 4.4 km, roughly an hour at normal pace. No visitor needs to walk the whole loop, but picking the wrong gate or zone routinely adds one or two kilometres.
QWhy does it take an hour to find a supplier's booth?
Five factors stack up: 20 halls across four zones, and the wrong zone means starting again; crowds at the 8:30–11:00 morning peak and 17:30–19:00 evening peak, with queues at security and corridors; humid heat during the fair with no air conditioning on the footbridges and corridors; badge and security formalities taking real time; and language barriers when asking directions, since most staff know only their own area. Any one of them goes wrong and the hour is gone.
QWhat time should I arrive on a first visit?
Be at the gate before 9:00 Beijing time. After 10:00 the halls fill noticeably, and at midday in late October and early November the temperature can still be around 30 °C, which makes the un-air-conditioned bridges harder work. Mornings are also more productive for meetings, and most overseas buyers schedule supplier appointments in the morning.
QHow long from Zone A to Zone C?
On foot via the air-conditioned corridors and the Pearl River promenade, about 20 to 30 minutes from Zone A to Zone C, and about 10 to 15 minutes from Zone A to Zone D. Within a zone you can stay indoors the whole way and avoid the sun, but the distance is real: cross zones three or four times in a day and 20,000 steps come easily. When booking suppliers, put the ones in the same zone into adjacent slots.
QHow do I read a booth number?
Hall number, floor, aisle letter and stand number. For example 9.2A15 means hall 9, second floor, aisle A, stand 15. Zone A is halls 1 to 8, Zone B halls 9 to 13, Zone C halls 14 to 16 and Zone D halls 17 to 20; the fashion accessories and service robot sections are in Friendship Hall 21.2. With the number in hand, work out the zone first, then which gate to use.
Samples picked up at booths, catalogues and the first bulk order all need a way out. Same-day collection in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, consolidation from multiple suppliers, and ocean or air freight onward.
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