The city’s name, Shenyang, literally meaning "the city in the north of Shen River", comes from the old name of the Hun River on the city’s south side, which used to be called Shen River. Shenyang used to have two city walls. The inner city wall was built on 1625. Most of it was rebuilt on the old city wall of Ming Dynasty. The outer city wall was built during 1700s to protect the urban area outside the inner city wall, which also had eight gates.

Shenyang is an important industrial center in China. It has been focused on heavy industry, particularly aerospace, machine tools and defence, and recently, on automotive, and electronics.

Attractions
Mukden Palace
Dongling
Beiling Park and Zhaoling
World Horticulture Exposition garden
Qipan Mountain
Shenyang is served by air, rail, and an extensive network of streets and expressways, with bus service throughout the city.

Shenyang is famous for its soccer tradition. The local soccer team is the Liaoning F.C., in the Chinese Super League.