I Heart China

Beijing (北京) is the capital city of China. It is one of four Municipalities in China, giving it autonomy form the surrounding province of Hebei. Beijing was also known in the past as Peking or the older name Peiping.. The city is situated in the North of the country on the edge of the Yellow River plains and a short distane form the Bohai Sea. The population of the city is estimated at around 14,230,000 people. All of China's 56 ethnic groups are represented in the city, though the population is 96.5% Han.

An ancient city, Beijing has a long history and a correspondingly large cultural heritage. No less than five UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located in or near to Beijing. These include: The Great Wall of China which passes through the mountains North of the city; The Temple of Heaven; The Imperial palaces aka 'Forbidden City'; The Summer Palace with it's extensive gardens and lakes; The Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasty Emperors; and the site where they discovered Peking Man in the Beijing suburb of Zhoukoudian. In addition, there is the Llama Temple, Confucian School, the Drum tower and Bell tower, and the list goes on. In the center of the city, between the Qianmen and Tiananmen gates lies Tiananmen square. This is the worlds largest city square, fully 1km in length.

The city had a powerful strategic location at the tip of the North China Plain. Lying on major trade routes toMongolia, Manchuria, and Korea, it served both as a citadel for defense of the lowlands against invasions from the north and as a base for Chinese expansion into these areas. Beijing has been a major settlement at least since 1027 BC, when the feudal state of Yan established its capital, Ji, in the area of modern Beijing. Yan was destroyed during the unification of China by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the third century BC. The city of Ji became the administrative center of the Guangyang Commandery. Ji was the capital of one of thirty six prefectures under the new feudal government system of Qin dynasty China. In 608 AD the Sui emperor, Yang, built a canal from the Yellow River to Ji to supply troops engaged in his campaigns against Korea. The canal was later linked with others to the south to form the Grand Canal, part of which, near Beijing, is still in use today. After the fall of the Tang dynasty in 906, Ji came under the control of the Qidans (Khitans) who founded the Liao dynasty in the North East of modern China. Ji became the second capital of the Liao and was renamed Nanjing or Yanjing which means 'Southern Capital'. The Liao fell to the Nuzhen (Jurchen) people who founded the Jin dynasty. In 1153, Wan Yanliang moved the Jin capital to Yanjing and renamed the city Zhongdu (Central Captial). During the Jin period, the city was five kilometers wide with a registered population of 225,592 households (estimated to be around one million people). In 1261, the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, after conquering the Jin, chose the site as the chief capital of his new Yuan dynasty. Dadu (Great Capital), as the new capital was called, quickly developed into a cosmopolitan city, visited (probably) by Marco Polo and other Europeans by the the 13th century. In 1367, however, Dadu fell to Han Chinese forces under the command of the first Ming emperor, who moved his capital toNanjing in Jiangsu Province and renamed Dadu, Peiping, or Northern Peace. In 1420 the capital was returned to Peiping, which was promptly renamed Beijing, or Northern Capital. It has remained China's capital ever since.

The population of Beijing Municipality, defined as the total number of people who reside in Beijing for 6 months or more per year, was 17.4 million at the end of 2007. There were 12.04 million people in Beijing Municipality who had Beijing hukou (permanent residence), and the remainder were on temporary residence permits. In 2006, a study by the Beijing Statistics Bureau estimated the total of all people living in Beijing (permanent, temporary, unregistered and others) to be "close to 20 million." Recent statistics cited by China Daily put the number of migrant workers in the service and construction industries in Beijing at "more than 5.1 million." In addition, there is a large number of migrant workers (min gong) who live illegally in Beijing without any official residence permit (or unregistered people).

The population of Beijing's urban core (city proper) is over 13 million. After Chongqing and Shanghai, Beijing is the third largest of the four municipalities of the PRC, which are equivalent to provinces in China's administrative structure.

Most of Beijing's residents belong to the Han Chinese majority. Other ethnic minorities include the Manchu, Hui, and Mongol. A Tibetan-language high school exists for youth of Tibetan ancestry, nearly all of whom have come to Beijing from Tibet expressly for their studies. A sizable international community exists in Beijing, many attracted by the highly growing foreign business and trade sector, others by the traditional and modern culture of the city. Much of this international community lives in the areas around the Beijing CBD, Sanlitun, and Wudaokou. In recent years there has also been an influx of South Koreans who live in Beijing predominantly for business and study purpose. Many of them live in the Wangjing and Wudaokou areas.

Excludes members of the People's Liberation Army in active service.

Culture

People native to urban Beijing speak the Beijing dialect, which belongs to the Mandarin subdivision of spoken Chinese. Beijing dialect is the basis for Standard Mandarin, the language used in mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Rural areas of Beijing Municipality have their own dialects akin to those of Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing Municipality.

Beijing opera, or Peking opera (Jingju 京剧), 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 song, spoken dialogue, and codified action sequences, such as gestures, movement, 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.

Siheyuans line hutongs (胡同), or alleys, which 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 live in the new buildings, in apartments 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. Residents, however, have limited control over their own property, as the government usually owns it. Some particularly historic or picturesque neighbourhoods of hutongs are being preserved and restored by the government.

Mandarin cuisine is the local style of cooking in Beijing. The Peking Roast Duck is perhaps the most well-known dish. The Manhan Quanxi ("Manchu-Han Chinese full banquet") is a rare traditional banquet originally intended for the ethnic-Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty; it remains very prestigious and expensive. The Fuling Jiabing is a traditional Beijing snack food, a pancake (bing) resembling a flat disk with filling, made from fu ling (Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf, or "tuckahoe"), an ingredient common in traditional Chinese medicine. 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.

The cloisonné (or Jingtailan, literally "Blue of Jingtai") metalworking technique and tradition is a specialty of Beijing's cultural art, and is one of the most revered traditional crafts in China. Cloisonné making requires elaborate and complicated processes which includes: base-hammering, copper-strip inlay, soldering, enamel-filling, enamel-firing, surface polishing and gilding. Beijing's lacquerware is also well known for its sophisticated and intrinsic patterns and images carved into its surface, and the various decoration techniques of lacquer includes "carved lacquer" and "engraved gold".

Younger residents of Beijing have become more attracted to the nightlife, which has flourished in recent decade, breaking prior cultural traditions that practically restricted it to the upper class.

Architecture

The age, maturity and importance of this city means that there is a wealth of interesting buildings. It is filled with palaces, temples and gardens form the imperial past as well as major modern structures. However, the old lanes of Beijing, known as Hutongs, are rapidly disappearing. The old traditional housing is being rapidly replaced with modern high rise concrete housing estates.

In 2008, Beijing hosted the Olympic games. Large scale investment in the city's infrastructure and buildings turned large areas into building sites. However, with the construction completed, four startling new buildings have been created. The new National Swimming Center, nicknamed the Water Cube is a striking blue colour. It looks like it has been made from bubbles of water, frozen, then cut into a regular cuboid shape. The curves of the bubbles contrasting with the rectangular shape of the building. It was designed by PTW Architects. The National Stadium, known as the Birds Nest was designed by Herzog and De Meuron Architekten AG, Switzerland, and China Architecture Design Institute. It breaks form the regular patterns of most buildings with the exposed structure forming an almost random array of beams, columns and cross-members. CCTC's (China Central Television) new building has acquired the name Z crisscross. The work of architect Ram Koolhass, this building is shaped like two Z's joined at the top tip. It look almost impossible, as if it may fall over at any minute. Finally, the new National Grand Theater designed by French man Paul Andrew is known as the Eggshell. The building has a oval dome made of titanium and glass surrounded by green water.

Along side the modern developments. Beijing has recently heavily invested in the restoration of a large number of the city's historical buildings. Pride of place among these buildings is the Imperial Palace (Gùgōng 故宫) of Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City. This building, at the north end of Tiananmen Square, is the words largest palace complex. It boasts 9,999 rooms and covers an area of 720000 square meters (just under 2.6 million square feet). The buildings date to the Ming and Qing dynasties of China and formed the center of the old imperial capital city. About 15km to the west of the city center is the Summer Palace and gardens (颐和园). This area of palaces, temples, lakes and gardens covers 294 hectares (726.5 acres) and contains over 3,000 structures. It was started during the Jin Dynasty, some 800 years ago and developed and expanded by each successive dynasty. It is considered to have reached it's peak during the Qing dynasty. The British and French destroyed much of the site in 1860 though it was rebuilt. The summer palace was much favoured by Empress Cixi who is often criticized for over spending on the palace to the detriment of the rest of the country. In 1900 the site was again ravaged by foreign powers during the Boxer Rebellion but has yet again been reconstructed. Beijing contains a great many temples. Of particular note is the Temple of Heaven (Tiāntán 天坛) which was built between 1406 and 1420 by the Ming Emperor Yongle. This Taoist temple was used by the Emperors to make sacrifices twice a year, to the God of heaven in return for good harvests. The ceremony was considered to be of the highest importance and ordinary Chinese were forbidden to view it. The site now forms a large public park in the south of Beijing.

Through the twentieth century, Beijing lost large amounts of it's old architecture. Many buildings were destroyed or put to domestic use during the many wars and revolutions that marked the first half of the century. The city walls and gates that once surrounded the city have been almost entirely destroyed. Only a few short sections remain. The narrow Hutongs of old Beijing have replaced by wide, modern roads. In only a few places can you get a glimpse of what Beijing would once have been like. In the center of Beijing, in-front of the Imperial Palace, lies Tiān'ānmén Square (天安门广场). It stretches for 1km between the old gate of Qiánmén (前门) in the south and Tiananmen gate in the north. The square is often remembered in the west for the student protests, and subsequent crack down, of 1989. However, Tiananmen square is central to modern china. It was here, on October 1st, 1949, that Mao Zedong announced the formation of a new China in the form of the People's Republic of China. It is also here that Mao is laid to rest in his mausoleum. Surrounding the square are many of China's key buildings including the Great Hall of the People to the west, National Museum of China to the East, and to the north lies the Imperial Palace.

Beijing is amongst the most developed cities in China with tertiary industry accounting for 73.2% of its GDP; it was the first post industrial city in mainland China. Finance is one of the most important industries of Beijing. By the end of 2007, there are 751 financial organizations in Beijing that generated 128.6 billion RMB revenue accounting for 11.6% of the total financial industry revenue of the entire country. It is also accounts for 13.8% of Beijing's GDP, the highest percentage of that of all Chinese cities. Beijing is home to 26 Fortune Global 500 companies, the third most in the world behind Tokyo and Paris.

In 2008, Beijing's nominal GDP was 1.0488 trillion RMB (150 billion USD), a year-on-year growth of 9% from the previous year. Its GDP per capita was 63,029 RMB (9,075 USD), an increase of 5.2% from the previous year. In 2008, Beijing's primary, secondary, and tertiary industries were worth 11.28 billion RMB, 269.32 billion RMB, and 768.2 billion RMB. Urban disposable income per capita was 24,725 yuan, a real increase of 12.4% from the previous year. Per capita pure income of rural residents was 10,747 RMB, a real increase of 12.4%. Per capita disposable income of the 20% low-income residents increased 16.7%, 11.4 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the 20% high-income residents. The Engel's coefficient of Beijing's urban residents reached 31.8% in 2005 and that of the rural residents was 32.8%, declining 4.5 percentage points and 3.9 percentage points, respectively, compared with 2000.

Beijing's real estate and automobile sectors have continued to boom in recent years. In 2005, a total of 28.032 million square metres of housing real estate was sold, for a total of 175.88 billion RMB. The total number of cars registered in Beijing in 2004 was 2,146,000, of which 1,540,000 were privately owned (a year-on-year increase of 18.7%).

The Beijing CBD, centred 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 precincts, and high-end housing. The Beijing Financial Street, in the Fuxingmen and Fuchengmen area, is a traditional financial centre. The Wangfujing and Xidan areas are major shopping districts. Zhongguancun, dubbed "China's Silicon Valley", continues to be a major centre in electronics- and computer-related industries, as well as pharmaceuticals-related research. Meanwhile, Yizhuang, located to the southeast of the urban area, is becoming a new centre in pharmaceuticals, IT, and materials engineering. Urban Beijing is also known for being a centre of pirated goods and anything from the latest designer clothing to the latest DVDs can be found in markets all over the city, often marketed to expatriates and international visitors.

Major industrial areas include Shijingshan, located on the western outskirts of the city. Agriculture is carried out outside the urban area of Beijing, with wheat and maize (corn) being the main crops. Vegetables are also grown in the regions closer to the urban area in order to supply the city.

Beijing is increasingly becoming known for its innovative entrepreneurs and high-growth start-ups. This culture is backed by a large community of both Chinese and foreign venture capital firms, such as Sequoia Capital, whose head office in China resides in Chaoyang, Beijing. Though Shanghai is seen as the economic centre of China, this is typically based on the numerous large corporations based there, rather than as a centre for Chinese entrepreneurship.

The development of Beijing continues to proceed at a rapid pace, and the vast expansion of Beijing has created a multitude of problems for the city. Beijing is known for its smog as well as the frequent "power-saving" programmes instituted by the government. Citizens of Beijing as well as tourists frequently complain about the quality of the water supply and the cost of the basic services such as electricity and natural gas. To reduce air pollution, a number of major industries have been ordered to reduce emissions or leave the city. Beijing Capital Steel, once one of the city's largest employers and its single biggest polluter, has been moving most of its operations to Tangshan.

Specially designated industrial parks in Beijing include: Zhongguancun Science Park, Yongle Economic Development Zone, Beijing Economic-technological Development Area, and Tianzhu Airport Industrial Zone.