The old district of Guangzhou was taken as an example to explore new approaches – the perspective of space syntax – to study the urban structure based on the Geographic Information Centre (GIS) space statistics. Results show that the old district of Guangzhou has significant spatial heterogeneity; the historic regions, as the urban core, have a deep effect on the city and own a ‘double interface’ for both the visitors and indigenous inhabitants. Unique space logic has been formed in the long history of the city, but the grid structure of the old district is unbalanced and incomplete, and some regions have problems in accessibility. Given this, the paper, based on the distribution of the historical buildings, proposed to create contextual urban axes, optimise the public service and improve the space structure, to provide a reference to the preservation and utilisation of historic buildings.