Tianyi Square is Ningbo's main commercial and civic plaza, a large pedestrian zone in the city centre surrounded by shopping malls, restaurants, and the main Ningbo municipal buildings. The square itself is architecturally undistinguished — a large open space with occasional public art — but it serves as the city's focal gathering point and provides useful orientation: TianYi Pavilion is a five-minute walk west, the Sacred Heart Cathedral is close to the northeast, and the Laowaitan waterfront is a fifteen-minute walk southeast.
The pedestrian streets fanning out from Tianyi Square contain Ningbo's best concentration of restaurants, particularly along Zhongshan Road and the lanes behind it. The food street east of the square has a good selection of Ningbo-style seafood restaurants, hotpot, and Cantonese teahouses alongside the inevitable mall food courts. For evening dining and bar-hopping, the square's perimeter is more accessible than the more atmospheric but harder-to-navigate alleys of the old city.