The political center of the world's most popular country, Beijing is China's cultural and educational center and a major industrial city. Beijing is one of three Chinese cities designated as a special, or national, municipality. As the national capital, it is China's second largest city ,as of population and its largest in territory. The total area incorporated within its boundaries is 6,490 square miles, including the high number of outside rural counties.

Location and Environment

        Beijing sits between two rivers that flow out of the hills and onto the North China Plain, which at this location is a large alluvial fan. The city is located some 160 kilometers from the gulf of Bo Hai, an part of the Yellow Sea.

         Located at 39o 55" N latitude, Beijing has a climate that is largely continental with warm summers and long, cold, dry winters. Cold, dry winds blow a great deal of dust onto the city from as far away as the Loess Plateau and Gobi of Mongolia. Precipitation averages 25 inches per year. Most of the rainfall occurs in the months of June, July, and August.

Physical Design and Plan

        Major Chinese cities always had walls, and the geometric shapes were regular and aligned according to the points of the compass. Beijing, with its north-south and east-west main axes, is no different. Major gates were located at the points where main arterials entered the city, and some of these gates have survived. The wall has been torn down and replaced by a ring road to facilitate the flow of modern traffic.

        During the Ch'ing period the city's general design was unchanged, but many new temples and palaces were built, some outside the walls. Among the most striking examples is the Summer Palace, which was built northwest of the city, about 11 kilometers beyond the wall.

         The focal point of modern Beijing is Tiananmen Square, a huge plaza that covers nearly 40 hectares. The square faces the inner city on the north, the immense, two-block-long Great Hall of the People (the main assembly hall dedicated to party and government rallies) on the west, and a large historical museum on the east. The memorial tomb dedicated to the late Communist party leader Mao Zedong is located in the middle of the square on the south. The plaza is the stage for major political and Communist party celebrations and can accommodate more than a half million people on such occasions. The square was the scene of a brutal crackdown by government forces against student prodemocracy demonstrations in May-June 1989.

         North of Tiananmen Square is the Forbidden City, now called the Palace Museum. The palace and temple complex within the Forbidden City are among the most impressive and beautiful examples of Chinese architecture. For a while after the 1989 prodemocracy demonstrations the Forbidden City was closed to the public. A large park, Bei Hai, and the leadership residential compound are located just west of the Forbidden City. To the east and west are major commercial and shopping streets and centers.

        The most beautiful historic structure in Beijing is the Temple of Heaven in the southern outer city. It has  several buildings in a park setting,the oldest building was erected in 1420 as a place of heaven worship for the emperor.

        Areas of the city outside the older walled center, as well as some areas within, are made up of low, crowded dwellings. They are being torn down and replaced with new apartment buildings, hotels, and office buildings. Broad boulevards and avenues are replacing the older streets and narrow alleyways that characterized old Beijing. City planners and government officials view the rebuilt Beijing as a model city and a great capital for socialist China.

People

        Beijing's population in the early 1990s was more than 10 million people, and nearly 7 million live in the city proper. The remainder reside in the ten surrounding counties that make up the administrative territory of the municipality. Of this population about 60 percent are considered nonagricultural, or true urbanites. Almost 1 million people are engaged in agriculture, and some 2 million are employed in industrial enterprises.

        The population growth of Beijing has been remarkable. The city had only 728,000 people in 1913, and its population did not reach 1 million until the 1920s. In 1949 the population was estimated at more than 4 million, with about 43 percent believed to be nonagricultural urbanites.

        Natural population increase based on a high birthrate accounted for the city's rapid growth from 1950 to 1960. In 1964, after several years of a severe national food shortage, the central government instituted a family-planning and birth-control campaign. Beijing's birthrate declined to 1.4 percent per year by 1979, a rate comparable to that of Western industrial countries. Population growth continued, however, primarily because of the migration into the city of rural people and those from other provinces. Diplomats, journalists, and business people make up the small but growing community of foreign residents.

        Compared to China's other large cities the building and population densities in Beijing are low. For example, the density of the municipality's population in the early 1990s averaged about 644 per square kilometer. For the more densely crowded built-up area of the city it was 12,140 per square kilometer. By Western standards this is high, but Shanghai had a comparable figure of 41,850 per square kilometer. The average amount of housing space available for Beijing's residents was about 5 square meters per person. This was the highest among China's major cities and more than twice the average housing space for a resident of Shanghai.

Economy

        The economy of Beijing has changed dramatically under Communism. Traditionally the city was primarily an administrative and cultural center because of its distance far from the country's key economic area, the Yangtze River valley. From 1949 it developed rapidly as an industrial and manufacturing city and strove to become mostly self-sufficient in such food supplies as vegetables, fruits, fish, and poultry.

        Beijing is unlike most of the world's major cities because agriculture forms a significant portion of the economy. This development conforms with the socialist belief that all cities should produce as well as consume, and Beijing has developed a broad and diversified producer economy.

        Industries in the municipality include iron and steel and other metals; machinery, including cranes, locomotives, mining machinery, and printing equipment; automotive and agricultural equipment; communications, electrical, and electronics equipment; precision instruments; petrochemicals; and food processing. Beijing is also one of China's textile centers. The textile industry produces cotton and woolen fabrics, serge, and synthetic fabrics. Among the city's handicrafts are rugs and carpets, porcelain and china, jade and ivory sculpture, brass ware, enamel and lacquer ware, lace, and embroidery.

        The city's labor force also reflects the presence of these industries. Almost half of Beijing's workers are employed in industrial and manufacturing activities. In the total gross value of industrial output Beijing ranks second only to Shanghai among Chinese cities. This is remarkable for a city that had only a modest industrial base in 1949.

        Less than 10 percent of the city's labor force works in commercial and service sectors. This situation represents a dramatic change from the past, but it has not come without problems. Among the most serious are environmental problems, which include air and water pollution and an insufficient water supply for domestic use. The quality of air in Beijing has declined as a result of increased industry and increased numbers of automobiles, trucks, and people. Polluted water has resulted from more people and industry, though the city is one of the few in China with a sanitary sewage system. Concern about these negative effects of industrialization on the environment has led to a cutback in the expansion of industry.

        The insufficient supply of water is a major problem because the climate is comparatively dry. Water shortages, however, result more often from poor agricultural practices than from industrial waste. Beijing is surrounded by a zone of intensive farming that produces grain and vegetables for the urban market. Irrigation water is provided to these farms at little or no cost. Most of the city's water is supplied from Kuan-t'ing Reservoir, the largest man-made lake in the North China Plain, which lies in the northwestern mountains beyond the Great Wall. Research and study are under way on transferring water from central China, which has a large surplus, to the North China Plain and the Beijing municipality.

Transportation

        Beijing is a major transportation center. Five main rail lines link the city with other major regions of China. Accessibility to the rest of the country by rail is one of the city's main advantages. Beijing's large, busy airport is served by both international and domestic carriers.

        Beijing's citizens own more than 3 million bicycles and use them as a major means of transportation within the city. Buses are also a major form of transportation. Bus travel is cheap, though uncomfortable because of overcrowding. Automobiles have become more numerous, but throughout China private car ownership is rare. In late 1987 the Beijing subway system was opened. It runs more than 40 kilometers. This is the only subway system in China, and as traffic congestion increases in the Beijing municipality it will be expanded.

Government

        Beijing is China's capital, and the country's major political and judicial institutions are located in the city. These include the headquarters of the Communist party; the National People's Congress, the main organ of state power; and the State Council. The major administrative departments, ministries, and commissions are under the authority of the State Council and typically have their headquarters in Beijing.

        As one of China's three national municipalities, Beijing is linked directly to the national government. Administratively the city is an enormous metropolis composed of five inner-city districts, four suburban districts, and ten annexed counties. The districts are further subdivided into smaller units. The city has a mayor, and a People's Congress represents the citizens. The mayor's office is responsible for implementing the decisions of the People's Congress. The many functions served by the mayor's office range from police and judicial activities to education, employment, and health and sanitation.

        Municipal administration and control extend down to the neighborhood and residents' committee level. Such concerns as census counting, hygiene, neighborhood beautification and cleanup, and culture and recreation are administered at the neighborhood level.

        Martial law was declared in Beijing in the aftermath of the May-June 1989 student prodemocracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and the massacre of some 1,000 demonstrators. Informants dutifully turned in "counterrevolutionaries" who supported the student protests. In December the municipal leaders forbade "gatherings, rallies, or demonstrations" in the square without prior permission. In January 1990 martial law was lifted in the city.

History

        Human settlement in the vicinity of today's Beijing began as early as the Lower Paleolithic period more than 400,000 years ago, and more recent remains of early human groups from the Upper Paleolithic period have been discovered in the same location. From 1918 to 1939 the fossil remains of Peking man were uncovered at Zhoukoudian, a cave 55 kilometers southwest of the city. Peking man lived about 400,000 years ago.

        The first town was constructed more than 2,000 years ago near the zone of contact between the "civilized" traditional Han Chinese and those tribal peoples from the north and west whom the Chinese viewed as barbarians. The Great Wall, which runs along the Yan Mountains about 64 kilometers to the north and west of Beijing, was an effort to stabilize the frontier between the Han Chinese and the barbarian peoples during the 3rd century BC . Yet it remained for a later Mongol leader from beyond the wall, Kublai Khan, to build the city Ta-tu or "Great Capital," at the site of Beijing in AD 1264 and to establish it as the political center for all of China. Except for a few brief interruptions, Beijing has served as China's capital ever since.

        The name Beijing, or Peking, means "Northern Capital." In 1368 the founder of the Ming Dynasty shifted the capital to Nanjing, or "Southern Capital." Nanjing remained the capital until 1420, when a succeeding Ming emperor decreed that the capital should return to its previous site in the north. There it remained throughout the Ming (1368-1644) and Ch'ing (1644-1911) dynasties. In 1928 the Nationalists again moved the capital to Nanjing and changed the name of the northern capital to Peiping, meaning "Northern Peace." Peiping was occupied by the Japanese from 1937 to 1945 but did not sustain serious damage during World War II. In 1949, with the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the city was once again selected as the national capital, and its name was restored to Peking. In 1979 the Pinyin transliteration Beijing was formally adopted. Population, city (1989 estimate), 6,800,000; municipality (1990 census), 10,819,407.