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Beijing 
listenfile (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: Běijīng; Wade-Giles: Pei-ching; ; Postal System
Pinyin: Peking), is the capital city of the People's Republic of China.
Beijing is one of the 4 municipalities of the People's
Republic of China, which have a provincial-level status, and is under the direct control of the central government. Beijing
has been a municipality since the beginning of the PRC.
Beijing is one of the largest cities in China, second only to Shanghai as the
nation's biggest in terms of population. It is also a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways
connecting the capital city in all directions. Currently Beijing is recognized as the political, cultural, and social center in
the People's Republic of China.
Names
Beijing (北京) literally means "northern capital", the result of an East Asian tradition to name capital cities as
such: other cities similarly named include Nanjing (南京), China, meaning
"southern capital"; Tokyo (東京), Japan, and Tonkin (東京; now Hanoi), Vietnam, both meaning "eastern capital"; as well as Kyoto (京都), Japan, and Gyeongseong (京城; now Seoul),
Korea, both meaning simply "capital". An older English name for Beijing is Peking.
The term originated with French missionaries four hundred years ago, and corresponds to an archaic pronunciation which does not
take into account a /k/ to /tɕ/ sound change in Mandarin that occurred during the Qing dynasty. (/tɕ/ is represented in pinyin as
j, as in Beijing.)
In China, the city has had many names. Between 1928 [1] (http://www.bartleby.com/67/2470.html) and 1949, it was
known as Peiping (北平, Pinyin Beiping, Wade-Giles Peip'ing) or "Northern Peace". The name was changed because jing means "capital" and the
Kuomintang government in Nanking (now Nanjing) wanted to emphasize that Peking was not the capital of China, and Peking's warlord government was not
legitimate.
The name was changed back to Beijing by the Japanese, since Beijing was the capital of a North China; at the end of World War II the Republic of China changed the name back. The Communist Party of China changed the name to Beijing in 1949 again in part to emphasize that
Beijing was the capital of China. The government of the Republic of
China on Taiwan has not formally recognized the name change, and during the 1950s
and 1960s it was common for Beijing to be called Peiping on Taiwan. Today, almost everyone on Taiwan, including the ROC
government, uses the term Beijing, although some maps of China from Taiwan still use
the old name along with pre-1949 provincial boundaries.
For the historical names of Beijing, see Capital of China.
History
There were cities in the vicinities of Beijing by the 1st
millennium BC, and the capital of the State of Yan (燕), one of
the powers of the Warring States Period, was established
at Ji (蓟), near modern Beijing. Ji has often been claimed to be the beginning of Beijing; but in reality Ji had been
abandoned no later than the 6th century. The exact location of Ji remains
unknown despite much effort in recent decades to identify the site.
During the great Tang and Song dynasties, only townships existed in this area. Numerous ancient poets came here to mourn the lost city,
as testified by their surviving compositions.
The Later Jin Dynasty
ceded a large part of its northern frontier, including modern Beijing, to the Khitan
Liao Dynasty in the 10th
century. Soon the Liao Dynasty had set up a "secondary capital" in the
city proper, and called it Nanjing ("the Southern Capital").
The Jin Dynasty that annexed Liao and ruled northern China built its
capital there, called Zhongdu (中都), or "the Central Capital".
Mongol forces burned Zhongdu to the ground in 1215 and rebuilt its own "Grand Capital"
(大都) to the north of the Jin capital in 1267, which was the true beginning of
contemporary Beijing. This site is known as Cambaluc in Marco Polo's
accounts. Apparently, Kublai Khan, who wanted to become a Chinese emperor, established his capital in Beijing instead of more
traditional sites in central China because Beijing was closer to his power base in Mongolia. The decision of the Khan greatly
enhanced the status of a city that had been situated on the northern fringe of China proper.
In 1403, the 3rd Ming emperor Zhu Di(朱棣）, who had just grabbed the
throne by killing his nephew after a bloody civil war and moved the capital from southern China to his own power base in the
north, renamed the city Beijing (北京), or "Northern Capital".
The Forbidden City was constructed soon after that (1406-1420), followed by the Temple of Heaven (1420), and numerous other construction
projects. Tian'anmen, which has become a state symbol of the PRC in modern
times, was burned down twice during the Ming Dynasty and the final
reconstruction was carried out in 1651.
The shape and form of Beijing as seen and as recognised today (in particular within the confines of the current-day 2nd Ring Road) took form after the Ming Dynasty settled in Beijing and made it
its capital.
While on the mainland, the Republic of China established its
capital in Nanjing. During the early days of the Republic, Yuan Shikai seized power in Beijing and declared an empire nation from Beijing (the
Beiyang Government). In 1928, Nanjing was officially made the capital of the Republic of China, and Beijing was renamed Beiping. (See "Name" section, above)
During the second Sino-Japanese War, Beiping
fell to Japan on July 29, 1937. During the occupation, Beiping was renamed Beijing, and made the seat of the North
China Executive Committee, a puppet state that ruled Japanese-occupied
North China. This lasted until Japan's surrender in World War II, on
August 15, 1945, and Beijing's name was
changed back to Beiping.
On January 31, 1949, during the
Chinese Civil War, communist forces entered Beiping without a
fight. On October 1 of the same year, the Communist Party of China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, announced in Tian'anmen
the creation of the People's Republic of
China in Beijing. Just a few days earlier, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference decided that Beiping
would be the capital of the PRC, and that its name be changed back to Beijing.
At the time of the founding of the People's Republic, Beijing consisted of just its urban area and immediate suburbs. The
urban area was divided into many district inside the 2nd Ring Road, with most of the city wall still intact until the 1950s. Since
then several surrounding counties have been incorporated as well,
enlarging the city limits of Beijing by many times.
Following the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the urban area of Beijing has expanded greatly. Formerly within
the confines of the 2nd Ring Road and the 3rd Ring Road, the urban area of Beijing is now pushing at the limits of the recently-constructed
5th Ring Road, with many areas that were formerly farmland now developed
residential or commercial neighborhoods. A new commercial area has developed in the Guomao area; Wangfujing and Xidan have developed into flourishing shopping districts, while Zhongguancun has become a major center of electronics in China.
As the capital of the nation, Beijing has also been the site of political turmoil in recent years. Tiananmen Square, widely regarded as the spiritual center of China, was the
site of the Tiananmen Square protests
of 1989, which ended in a military crackdown that remains highly controversial. Tiananmen Square has also been the site of
protests by Falun Gong.
In recent years, the expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some problems of urbanization, such as heavy
traffic, poor air quality, the loss
of historic neighborhoods, and a drastic influx of migrants from poorer regions of the country, especially the countryside.
Beijing has been chosen to host the 2008 Summer
Olympics, an event that sparked a high tide of patriotic emotion across China.
Geography
- Main article: Geography of Beijing
Beijing borders Hebei province to the north, west, south, and for a tiny fraction to
the east. The southwestern part borders Tianjin municipality. Hills dominate the
scene to the north, northwest and west of Beijing.
The city's climate is harsh, characterized by hot, humid summers (due to the East
Asian monsoon), and cold, windy, dry winters (reflecting the influence of the vast
Siberian anticyclone, or
high-pressure system).
The urban area of Beijing spreads out in bands of concentric ring roads. Tian'anmen is right at the centre of
Beijing, and is directly to the south of the well-known Forbidden City,
and to the east of Zhongnanhai, current residence of the paramount leaders of
the People's Republic of China. Running
through central Beijing from east to west is the well-known Chang'an
Avenue.
Most of the area of Beijing Municipality, however, is found outside the urban area of Beijing, and extends in all directions,
especially northwards into the Yanshan Mountains.
Neighbourhoods
Major neighbourhoods in urban Beijing include:
Dongcheng District
Xicheng District
Chaoyang District
Haidian District
Administrative divisions
The municipality currently governs 18 county-level divisions: 16 districts and 2 counties. (Some districts
outside of the city centre were previously counties.)
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County-level
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see also: Township-level divisions of Beijing |
Districts of Beijing
The urban and suburban areas of the city are made up of 8 districts:
The other 8 districts are found further out, and govern distant suburbs, satellite towns, and some rural areas:
- Mentougou District (门头沟区:
Méntóugōu Qū)
- Fangshan District
(房山区: Fángshān Qū) — Fangshan County until 1986
- Tongzhou District
(通州区: Tōngzhōu Qū) — Tongxian County until 1997
- Shunyi District (顺义区: Shùnyì Qū)
— Shunyi County until 1998
- Changping District
(昌平区: Chāngpíng Qū) — Changping County until 1999
- Daxing District
(大兴区: Dàxīng Qū) — Daxing County until 2001
- Pinggu District (平谷区: Pínggǔ Qū)
— Pinggu County until 2001
- Huairou District
(怀柔区: Huáiróu Qū) — Huairou County until 2001
Counties of Beijing
The 2 counties of Beijing govern very distant towns and rural areas:
- Miyun County
(密云县: Mìyún Xiàn)
- Yanqing County
(延庆县: Yánqìng Xiàn)
Township-level divisions
The above districts and counties are further subdivided into 318 township-level divisions: 142 towns, 40 townships, 5 ethnic townships and 131 subdistricts.
Economy
In 2002 Beijing's total gross domestic product was
313 billion Renminbi, an increase of 10.2% from the previous year. GDP per capita
was 27,746 Renminbi, which converts to about US$ 3355 by market exchange rates. (Note that GDP per capita is usually converted by purchasing power parity instead, which would yield a US$
value about four times higher in this case.)
Beijing's real estate and automobile sectors continue to boom in recent years. In 2002 a total of
16.044 million square metres of housing real estate was sold, for a total
of 81.38 billion Renminbi. In the same period Beijing saw the sale of 260,000
automobiles. The total number of automobiles registered in Beijing has now
exceeded two million, of which 64% are privately-owned.
The Beijing CBD, centered at the Guomao area, has been identified as the city's new central business district, and is home to a variety of corporate regional headquarters, shopping
malls, and high-end housing. The Beijing Financial
Street, in the Fuxingmen and Fuchengmen area, is a traditional financial center. The Wangfujing and Xidan areas are major shopping districts. Zhongguancun, dubbed "China's Silicon Valley", continues to be a major center in
electronics- and computer-related industries, as well as pharmaceuticals-related research.
Architecture
There are three predominant styles of architecture in Beijing. First, there's the "traditional" architecture of imperial times
gone by (examples include the massive gate north of Tian'anmen, despite being
the PRC's trademark building). Next there is what is sometimes referred to as the "Sino-Sov" style from the 1950s and the 1970s; boxy and generally poorly made. Finally, there are
much more modern architectural forms — most noticeably in the area of the Beijing CBD. Pictured below are some images of Beijing architecture — blending the old and the new in a
sometimes bizarre, sometimes beautiful, but always very Beijing manner.
A bizarre and striking mix of both old and new styles of architecture can be seen at the Dashanzi Art District, which mixes
1950s-design with a blend of the new.
Demographics
The total population of Beijing municipality in 2003 was 14.56 million, of whom about
11.49 million had a Beijing hukou
(residency card) and 3.07 million were on temporary residence permits. In addition, there is a large but unknown number of
migrant workers who live illegally in Beijing without any sort of residence permit. The population of the city proper itself is
about 7.5 million.
The vast majority of Beijing residents are Han Chinese. There are also
some Manchu, Hui, and Mongol people who call the city home. In recent years there has been an influx of South Koreans, who live in Beijing predominantly for business and study, and are concentrated in the Wangjing and Wudaokou areas.
The northern, northeastern and eastern parts of the Beijing urban area are densely populated and house the foreign community
in the capital. The southwest and southern parts of the Beijing urban area are less densely populated.
Culture
People from urban Beijing speak the Beijing dialect, which belongs
to the Mandarin subdivision of spoken Chinese. Beijing dialect
provides the basis for Standard Mandarin, the standard Chinese
language used in the People's Republic of
China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, and Singapore. Outlying areas of Beijing have their own
dialects akin to those of Hebei.
Beijing opera, or Jingju, is well-known throughout the national
capital. Commonly lauded as one of the highest achievements of Chinese culture, Beijing opera is performed through a combination
of singing, spoken dialogue, and codified action sequences, such as gestures, walking, fighting and acrobatics. Much of Beijing
opera is carried out in an archaic stage dialect quite different from modern Standard Mandarin and from the Beijing
dialect; this makes the dialogue somewhat hard to understand, and the problem is compounded if one is not familiar with
Chinese, although modern theaters often have electronic titles in Chinese and English.
The siheyuan(四合院）) is a traditional architectural style of Beijing. A siheyuan consists of
a square housing compound, with rooms enclosing a central courtyard. This courtyard often contains a pomegranate or other type of tree, as well as potted flowers or a fish tank.
Hutongs, or alleyways, connect the interior of Beijing's old city. They are usually
straight and run east-to-west so that doorways can face north and south for Feng
Shui reasons. They vary in width — some are very narrow, enough for only a few pedestrians to pass through at a
time.
Once ubiquitous in Beijing, siheyuans and hutongs are now rapidly disappearing, as entire city blocks of hutongs are leveled
and replaced with high-rise buildings. Residents of the hutongs are entitled to apartments in the new buildings of at least the
same size as their former residences. Many complain, however, that the traditional sense of community and street life of the
hutongs cannot be replaced.
Particularly historic or picturesque hutongs are being preserved and restored by the government, with the objective that by
the 2008 Olympics, at least some hutongs will remain, albeit in a tidy, gleaming, showcase fashion. One such example can be seen
at Nanchizi.
Mandarin cuisine is the local style of cooking in Beijing.
Peking duck is perhaps the most well-known dish. The Manhan Quanxi ("Manchu-Han Chinese full banquet") is a traditional banquet
originally intended for the ethnic-Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty; it remains very prestigious and very expensive.
Teahouses are also common in Beijing. Chinese tea comes in many varieties and some (rather expensive) types of Chinese tea are said to cure an ailing body
extraordinarily well.
Stereotypes
Beijingers are stereotypically held to be open, confident, humorous, majestic in manner, concerned with politics or other
"grand" matters, unconcerned with thrift or careful calculation, and happy to take center stage. They are also very enthusiastic
about arts. They are however also stereotypically aristocratic, arrogant, laid back, disdainful of "provincials", always "lording
it over others", and strongly conscious of social class. These stereotypes may
have originated from Beijing's status as China's capital for most of the past 800 years. As a Confucian culture, China places a very high emphasis on government
bureaucracy and hierarchy, and the high concentration of officials and other
notables in Beijing have made an indelible mark, both on Beijing itself and on the opinions of Beijing that other Chinese
hold.
Transportation
- Main article: Transportation of
Beijing
With the growth of the city following economic reforms, Beijing has evolved as an important transportation hub. Encircling the
city are five ring roads, nine expressways and city express routes, eleven China National Highways, several railway routes, and
an international airport.
Rail
Beijing has two major railway stations: Beijing
Railway Station (or the central station) and Beijing West Railway Station. Five other railway stations in Metropolitan Beijing handle
regular passenger traffic: Beijing East, Beijing North, Beijing South, Fengtai, and
Guanganmen.
Railways
Beijing is a railway hub for China. Railway lines to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Harbin, Baotou, Taiyuan, Chengde and
Qinhuangdao radiate out of Beijing.
International trains, including lines to cities in Russia and Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK), all
run through Beijing. Direct trains to Kowloon, in the Hong Kong SAR also
leave Beijing.
Roads and Expressways
- See: Ring Roads of Beijing, Expressways of Beijing and China National Highways of Beijing for
more related information.
Beijing is connected via road links from all parts of China. Nine expressways of China (with six wholly new expressways under projection or construction) connect with
Beijing, as do eleven China National Highways. Within
Beijing itself, an elaborate network of five ring roads has developed, but they appear more rectangular than ring-shaped. Roads
in Beijing often are in one of the four compass directions (unlike, for example, Tianjin).
One of the biggest concerns with traffic in Beijing deals with its apparently ubiquitous traffic jams. Traffic in the city
centre is often gridlocked, especially around rush hour. (Even outside of rush hour, several roads still remain clogged up
with traffic.) Urban area ring roads and major through routes, especially near the Chang'an Avenue area, are often clogged up during rush hour.
Recently, however, expressways have been extended (in some cases reconstructed as express routes) into the territories within
the 3rd Ring Road. As they are either expressways
or express routes, no traffic lights will lie in its trajectory. This may finally attempt to solve the question of "hopping
between one ring and the other".
One big problem is that public transportation is underdeveloped (the underground system is presently minimal) and that even
buses are jam-packed with people around rush hour. Compounding the problem is problematic enforcement of road regulations and
road rage. Beijing authorities claim that traffic jams may be a thing of a past
come the 2008 Olympics. The authorities have introduced several bus lanes
where, during rush hour, all vehicles except for public buses must keep clear of the special lanes. An express bus route will be
opened on Christmas Day 2004.
Chang'an Avenue runs through the centre of Beijing, past
Tian'anmen. It is a major through route and is often touted as the "First
Street in China" by the authorities.
Air
Beijing's main airport is the Beijing Capital International Airport near Shunyi, which is about 20 km northeast of Beijing proper. This is where most domestic and nearly all
international flights land and depart. Capital Airport is the hub for Air China.
It is linked into central Beijing the Airport Expressway and is
a roughly 40-minute drive from the city centre during good traffic hours.
Other airports in the city include Liangxiang Airport, Nanyuan Airport, Xijiao Airport and Badaling Airport. However, these are less well-known.
Public Transit
The evolving Beijing Subway has four lines (two above ground, two
underground), with several more being built in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. There are around 1,000 bus routes in
Beijing, as well as many trolleybus routes. Taxis are nearly ubiquitous, and some can accept Yikatong
cards for payment.
Buses and trolleybus fares cost 1 Renminbi for shorter trips, and more for
longer trips. Subway tickets range from 2 to 5 Renminbi. Taxi fares depend on
vehicle type: these start at 10 Renminbi for the first 3 to 4 kilometers, and go up
by 1.20, 1.60, 2.00, or 2.50 Renminbi per extra kilometer, depending on the
relative "quality" of the taxi. Some, too, can accept Yikatong cards for
payment.
Tourism
Tourist Attractions
- Main article: Tourist Attractions of
Beijing
Despite the damage caused by the Cultural Revolution and
the more recent incessant urbanisation, including the demolition of Hutongs, Beijing
still sports (or maintains) tourist attractions which are rich in history. The most well-known ones include the Badaling stretch of the Great Wall of China, The Summer Palace
and the Forbidden City. Although more known for its political
significance, Tian'anmen also forms part of Beijing, historically; it was
part of what used to be the city wall of Beijing.
Famous landmarks around Beijing include:
Hotels and Lodging
In the 1950s and 1960s, Beijing had virtually no hotels (at least none by Western standards). What Beijing did have
were the zhaodaisuos, which
meant "Accommodation Centres". Every zhaodaisuo was subordinate to a state organisation or state organ, and had communal
public conveniences and amenities. Zhaodaisuos still exist to this day.
In the late 1970s, Beijing opened its door to the outside world and built hotels. Now, plenty of exquisite hotels exist.
The most well-known hotel is the Beijing Hotel, which is state-owned.
Other noticeable hotels are the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, the Jianguo Hotel, the China World Hotel and the Grand Hyatt
at Oriental Plaza.
There exist youth hostels but they are few in number. There is one near the centre of town, but accommodation is provided four
floors below ground level.
Colleges and Universities
- Main article: Colleges
and Universities of Beijing
Beijing is home to plenty of well-known colleges and universities. The most famous ones (known even internationally) include
Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Communication University of China (well known in the Chinese media circle), Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Renmin University of China.
The following are under the Ministry of Education:
Media
TV and Radio
Beijing Television
(BTV) has nine TV programmes, numbered channels 1 through 9. Unlike CCTV, there is at present no exclusive English-language TV channel on a citywide level in
Beijing.
The TV programmes are run by Beijing TV.
There are three radio stations which feature programmes in English. They are Hit FM on FM 88.7, Easy FM by CRI
on FM 91.5, and the newly launched Radio 774 on AM 774.
Press
The well-known Beijing Evening News newspaper appears without delay every Beijing afternoon, covering news in
Chinese about Beijing. Other newspapers are the Beijing Star Daily, the Beijing Morning News and the
English-language Beijing
Weekend.
Nationwide newspapers are also available in Beijing.
Publications catering to the expat community include City Weekend, Beijing This
Month, Beijing
Talk, that's
Beijing and MetroZine,
among others.
International newspapers in most languages, including English and Japanese, are available in hotels and Friendship Stores, and
content often appears complete.
Miscellaneous topics
Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Olympics and of the
2008 Summer Paralympics.
Sports teams based in Beijing include:
Chinese Football Association Super
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