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Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is located in North China, and is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of the State Council with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts.Figures based on 2006 statistics published in 2007 National Statistical Yearbook of China and available online at 2006年中国乡村人口数 中国人口与发展研究中心 ( archive). Retrieved 21 April 2009. Beijing is mostly surrounded by Hebei Province and neighbors Tianjin to the southeast; together, the three divisions form the Jing-Jin-Ji.
Beijing is a global city and one of the world's leading centres for culture, diplomacy, politics, finance, business and economics, education, research, Beijing dialect, tourism, media, sport, science and technology, transportation, and art. It is home to the headquarters of most of China's largest state-owned companies and houses the largest number of Fortune Global 500 companies in the world, as well as the world's four biggest financial institutions by total assets. It is also a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks. For a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beijing Capital International Airport was Asia's busiest airport (2009–2019) and the second busiest airport in the world (2010–2019). In 2020, the Beijing Subway was the fourth busiest and second longest in the world. Beijing Daxing International Airport, Beijing's second international airport, is the largest single-structure airport terminal in the world. The city has hosted numerous international and national sporting events, the most notable being the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Paralympics Games. In 2022, Beijing became the first city ever to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, and also the Summer and Winter Paralympics.
Beijing combines both modern and traditional style architectures, with one side of the city being modernized and renovated to fit the times, and the other half still offering traditional hutong districts. Beijing is one of the oldest cities in the world, with a rich history dating back over three millennia. As the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political center of the country for most of the past eight centuries, and was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium AD. With mountains surrounding the inland city on three sides, in addition to the old inner and outer city walls, Beijing was strategically poised and developed to be the residence of the emperor and thus was the perfect location for the imperial capital. The city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Beijing is one of the most important tourist destinations in the world. In 2018, Beijing was the second highest earning tourist city in the world after Shanghai. Beijing is home to many national monuments and museums and has eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites—the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site, Beijing Central Axis and parts of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal—all of which are popular tourist locations. , the city's traditional housing style, and , the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing.
Beijing's public universities make up more than one-fifth of Double First-Class Construction universities, and many of them consistently rank among the best in the Asia-Pacific and the world, including Tsinghua University, Peking University and UCAS. Beijing CBD is a center for Beijing's economic expansion, with the ongoing or recently completed construction of multiple skyscrapers. Beijing's Zhongguancun area is a world leading center of scientific and technological innovation as well as entrepreneurship. Beijing has been ranked the city with the largest scientific research output by the Nature Index since the list's inception in 2016. Beijing hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many organizations, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Silk Road Fund, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Central Academy of Drama, the Central Conservatory of Music, and the Red Cross Society of China.
The single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is , which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is "BJ".Standardization Administration of China (SAC). " GB/T-2260: Codes for the administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China" (Microsoft Word). .
The first walled city in Beijing was Jicheng, the capital city of the state of Ji which was built in 1045 BC. Within modern Beijing, Jicheng was located around the present Guang'anmen area in the south of Xicheng District. This settlement was later conquered by the state of Yan and made its capital.Haw, Stephen. Beijing: A Concise History. Routledge, 2007. p. 136.
After China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 581, Jicheng, also known as Zhuo Commandery, became the northern terminus of the Grand Canal. Under the Tang dynasty, Jicheng as Youzhou, served as a military frontier command center. During the An-Shi Rebellion and again amidst the turmoil of the late Tang, local military commanders founded their own short-lived Yan dynasties and called the city Yanjing, or the "Yan Capital." Also in the Tang dynasty, the city's name Jicheng was replaced by Youzhou or Yanjing. In 938, after the fall of the Tang, the Later Jin ceded the frontier territory including what is now Beijing to the Khitan people Liao dynasty, which treated the city as Liao Nanjing, or the "Southern Capital", one of four secondary capitals to complement its "Supreme Capital" Shangjing (modern Baarin Left Banner in Inner Mongolia). Some of the oldest surviving pagodas in Beijing date to the Liao period, including the Tianning Pagoda.
The Liao fell to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in 1122, which gave the city to the Song dynasty and then retook it in 1125 during its conquest of northern China. In 1153, the Jurchen Jin made Beijing their "Central Capital", or Zhongdu. The city was besieged by Genghis Khan's invading Mongol Empire in 1213 and razed to the ground two years later. Two generations later, Kublai Khan ordered the construction of Khanbaliq (or Daidu to the Mongols, commonly known as Khanbaliq), a new capital for his Yuan dynasty to the northeast of the Zhongdu ruins. The construction took from 1264 to 1293,Brian Hook, Beijing and Tianjin: Towards a Millennial Megalopolis, p. 2. but greatly enhanced the status of a city on the northern fringe of China proper. The city was centered on the Drum Tower slightly to the north of modern Beijing and stretched from the present-day Chang'an Avenue to the northern part of Line 10 subway. Remnants of the Yuan rammed earth wall still stand and are known as the Tucheng.
The early death of Zhu Yuanzhang's heir led to a Jingnan Campaign upon his death, one that ended with the victory of Zhu Di and the declaration of the new Yongle Emperor. Since his harsh treatment of the Ming capital Nanjing (modern Nanjing) alienated many there, he established his fief as a new co-capital. The city of Beiping became Beijing ("Northern Capital") or Shuntian in 1403. The construction of the new imperial residence, the Forbidden City, took from 1406 to 1420; this period was also responsible for several other of the modern city's major attractions, such as the Temple of Heaven and Tian'anmen. On 28 October 1420, the city was officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty in the same year that the Forbidden City was completed. Beijing became the empire's primary capital, and Yingtian, also called Nanjing ("Southern Capital"), became the co-capital. (A 1425 order by Zhu Di's son, the Hongxi Emperor, to return the primary capital to Nanjing was never carried out: he died, probably of a heart attack, the next month. He was buried, like almost every Ming emperor to follow him, in an Ming tombs to Beijing's north.)
By the 15th century, Beijing had essentially taken its current shape. The Ming city wall continued to serve until modern times, when it was pulled down and the 2nd Ring Road was built in its place. It is generally believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world for most of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The first known church was constructed by Catholics in 1652 at the former site of Matteo Ricci's chapel; the modern Nantang Cathedral was later built upon the same site.
The capture of Beijing by Li Zicheng's peasant army in 1644 ended the dynasty, but he and his Shun dynasty abandoned the city without a fight when the Manchu people army of Prince Dorgon arrived 40 days later.
During the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces captured the outskirts of the city, looting and burning the Old Summer Palace in 1860. Under the Convention of Peking ending that war, Western powers for the first time secured the right to establish permanent diplomatic presences within the city. From 14 to 15 August 1900 the Battle of Peking was fought. This battle was part of the Boxer Rebellion. The attempt by the Boxers to eradicate this presence, as well as Chinese Christian converts, led to Beijing's reoccupation by eight foreign powers. During the fighting, several important structures were destroyed, including the Hanlin Academy and the (new) Summer Palace. A peace agreement was concluded between the Eight-Nation Alliance and representatives of the Chinese government Li Hongzhang and Yikuang on 7 September 1901. The treaty required China to pay an indemnity of US$335 million (over US$4 billion in current dollars) plus interest over a period of 39 years. Also required was the execution or exile of government supporters of the Boxers and the destruction of Chinese forts and other defenses in much of northern China. Ten days after the treaty was signed the foreign armies left Beijing, although legation guards would remain there until World War II.Preston, p. 310–311
With the treaty signed the Empress Dowager Cixi returned to Beijing from her "tour of inspection" on 7 January 1902 and the rule of the Qing dynasty over China was restored, albeit much weakened by the defeat it had suffered in the Boxer Rebellion and by the indemnity and stipulations of the peace treaty.Preston, pp. 312–315 The Dowager died in 1908 and the dynasty imploded in 1911.
On 7 July 1937, the 29th Army and the Japanese army in China exchanged fire at the Marco Polo Bridge near the Wanping Fortress southwest of the city. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II as it is known in China. During the war, Beijing fell to Japan on 29 July 1937 and was made the seat of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state that ruled the ethnic-Chinese portions of Japanese-occupied North China. This government was later merged into the larger Wang Jingwei government based in Nanjing.
In the 1950s, the city began to expand beyond the old walled city and its surrounding neighborhoods, with heavy industries in the west and residential neighborhoods in the north. Many areas of the Beijing city wall were torn down in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the Beijing Subway and the 2nd Ring Road.
During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the Red Guard movement began in Beijing and the city's government fell victim to one of the first purges. By the autumn of 1966, all city schools were shut down and over a million Red Guards from across the country gathered in Beijing for eight rallies in Tiananmen Square with Mao. In April 1976, a large public gathering of Beijing residents in Tiananmen Square, protesting against the Gang of Four and the Cultural Revolution, was forcefully suppressed. In October 1976, the Gang was arrested in Zhongnanhai and the Cultural Revolution came to an end. In December 1978, the Third Plenum of the 11th Party Congress in Beijing under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping reversed the verdicts against victims of the Cultural Revolution and instituted the "policy of reform and opening up".
Since the early 1980s, the urban area of Beijing has expanded greatly with the completion of the 2nd Ring Road in 1981 and the subsequent addition of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th ring roads. According to one 2005 newspaper report, the newly developed Beijing was one-and-a-half times its previous size. Wangfujing and Xidan have developed into flourishing shopping districts, while Zhongguancun has become a major center of electronics in China. In recent years, the expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some problems of urbanization, such as heavy traffic, Air pollution, the loss of historic neighborhoods, and a significant influx of migrant workers from less-developed of the country. The city has also been the location of many significant events in recent Chinese history, principally the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Beijing has hosted major international sporting events, including the 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2015 World Athletics Championships, and the 2022 Winter Olympics, and is the only city to have hosted both the Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics.
In terms of international connectedness, as of 2024, Beijing was one of eight cities worldwide that was classified as an "Alpha+" city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
Major rivers flowing through the municipality, including the Chaobai River, Yongding River, Juma, are all tributaries in the Hai River system, and flow in a southeasterly direction. The Miyun Reservoir, on the upper reaches of the Chaobai River, is the largest reservoir within the municipality. Beijing is also the northern terminus of the Grand Canal to Hangzhou, which was built over 1,400 years ago as a transportation route, and the South–North Water Transfer Project, constructed in the past decade to bring water from the Yangtze River basin.
The urban area of Beijing, on the plains in the south-central of the municipality with elevation of , occupies a relatively small but expanding portion of the municipality's area. The city spreads out in concentric ring roads. The Second Ring Road traces the old city walls and the Sixth Ring Road connects satellite towns in the surrounding suburbs. Tian'anmen and Tian'anmen Square are at the center of Beijing, directly to the south of the Forbidden City, the former residence of the emperors of China. To the west of Tiananmen is Zhongnanhai, the residence of China's current leaders. Chang'an Avenue, which cuts between Tiananmen and the Square, forms the city's main east–west axis.
Beijing's pattern of development from the old inner city to its urban fringe are frequently described as "spreading like a pancake" ( tan da bing). This pattern of development is frequently cited as a reason for Beijing's urban problems.
Since 2007, buildings in Beijing have received the CTBUH Skyscraper Award for best overall tall building twice, for the Linked Hybrid building in 2009 and the CCTV Headquarters in 2013. The CTBUH Skyscraper award for best tall overall building is given to only one building around the world every year.
In the early 21st century, Beijing has witnessed tremendous growth of new building constructions, exhibiting various modern styles from international designers, most pronounced in the CBD region. A mixture of both 1950s design and neofuturistic style of architecture can be seen at the 798 Art Zone, which mixes the old with the new. Beijing's tallest building is the 528-meter China Zun.
Beijing is famous for its , a type of residence where a common courtyard is shared by the surrounding buildings. Among the more grand examples are the Prince Gong Mansion and Residence of Soong Ching-ling. These courtyards are usually connected by alleys called . The hutongs are generally straight and run east to west so that doorways face north and south for good Feng Shui. They vary in width; some are so narrow only a few pedestrians can pass through at a time. Once ubiquitous in Beijing, siheyuans and hutongs are rapidly disappearing, as entire city blocks of hutongs are replaced by 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, and these properties are often government owned.
In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics and to fulfill promises to clean up the city's air, nearly US$17 billion was spent. Beijing implemented a number of air improvement schemes for the duration of the Games, including halting work at all construction sites, closing many factories in Beijing permanently, temporarily shutting industry in neighboring regions, closing some gas stations, and cutting motor traffic by half by limiting drivers to odd or even days (based on their license plate numbers), reducing bus and subway fares, opening new subway lines, and banning high-emission vehicles. The city further assembled 3,800 natural gas-powered buses, one of the largest fleets in the world. Beijing became the first city in China to require the Chinese equivalent to the Euro 4 emission standard.
Coal burning accounts for about 40% of the particulates in Beijing and is also the chief source of nitrogen and sulphur dioxide. James West, Mother Jones . 18 January 2013. Since 2012, the city has been converting coal-fired power stations to burn natural gas "Beijing to switch from coal to gas to go green". China Daily . 8 March 2012. and aims to cap annual coal consumption at 20 million tons. In 2011, the city burned 26.3 million tons of coal, 73% of which for heating and power generation and the remainder for industry. Much of the city's air pollutants are emitted by neighboring regions. Coal consumption in neighboring Tianjin is expected to increase from 48 to 63 million tons from 2011 to 2015. Li Jing, "Beijing's air quality will worsen without coal control, Greenpeace says". South China Morning Post. 5 February 2013 . Hebei Province burned over 300 million tons of coal in 2011, more than all of Germany, of which only 30% were used for power generation and a considerable portion for steel and cement making."Detecting the Heavy Metal Concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing", Greenpeace.org. 8 June 2013. Power plants in the coal-mining regions of Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, where coal consumption has tripled since 2000, and Shandong also contribute to air pollution in Beijing. Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei and Inner Mongolia, respectively rank from first to fourth, among Chinese provinces by coal consumption. There were four major coal-fired power plants in the city to provide electricity as well as heating during the winter. The first one (Gaojing Thermal Power Plant) was shut down in 2014. Another two were shut in March 2015. The last one (Huaneng Thermal Power Plant) would be shut in 2016. Between 2013 and 2017, the city planned to reduce 13 million tons of coal consumption and cap coal consumption to 15 million tons in 2015.
The government sometimes uses cloud-seeding measures to increase the likelihood of rain showers in the region to clear the air prior to large events, such as prior to the 60th anniversary parade in 2009 as well as to combat drought conditions in the area. More recently, however, the government has increased its usage of such measures as closing factories temporarily and implementing greater restrictions for cars on the road, as in the case of "APEC blue" and "parade blue", short periods during and immediately preceding the APEC China 2014 and the 2015 China Victory Day Parade, respectively. During and prior to these events, Beijing's air quality improved dramatically, only to fall back to unhealthy levels shortly after.
On 8 and 9 December 2015 Beijing had its first smog alert which shut down a majority of the industry and other commercial businesses in the city. Later in the month another smog "red alert" was issued.
According to Beijing's environmental protection bureau's announcement in November 2016, starting from 2017 highly polluting old cars will be banned from being driven whenever Smog "red alerts" are issued in the city or neighboring regions.
In recent years, there has been measurable reductions in pollutants after the "war on pollution" was declared in 2014, with Beijing seeing a 35% reduction in fine particulates in 2017 and further reduction by 2020. The primary factors behind this reduction were replacing coal power with natural gas and cleaning up polluting industrial facilities in the Beijing area.
Beijing's annual average concentration of major airborne fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, declined to 30 micrograms per cubic meter in 2022, the best air quality for the city since 2013. In 2024, Beijing experienced only two days of heavy pollution, the lowest number on record, which had decreased by 96.6 percent from 58 days in 2013.
The smog is causing harm and danger to the population. The air pollution does directly result in significant impact on the morbidity rate of cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease in Beijing. Exposure to large concentrations of polluted air can cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems, emergency room visits, and even death.
Government officials include the mayor (市长) and vice-mayor. Numerous bureaus focus on law, public security, and other affairs. Additionally, as the capital of China, Beijing houses all of the important national governmental and political institutions, including the National People's Congress.
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Several place names in Beijing end with mén (门), meaning "gate", as they were the locations of gates in the former Beijing city wall. Other place names end in cūn (村), meaning "village", as they were originally villages outside the city wall.
Due to the concentration of state owned enterprises in the national capital, Beijing in 2013 had more Fortune Global 500 Company headquarters than any other city in the world. "Jones Lang LaSalle Research Report – Five years after the Olympics – Growth in Beijing has continued, what to expect next?" August 2013 As of August 2022, Beijing has 54 Fortune Global 500 companies, more than Japan (47), the third-place country after China (145) and the United States (124). Beijing has also been described as the "billionaire capital of the world". In 2020, Beijing is the fifth wealthiest city in the world, with a total wealth amounts to $2 trillion. Beijing is classified as an Alpha+ (global first-tier) city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and worldwide and making it one of the world's Top 10 major cities. In the 2021 Global Financial Centres Index, Beijing was ranked as having the sixth-most competitive financial center in the world and fourth-most competitive in the whole Asia & Oceania region (behind Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore).
As of 2021, Beijing was ranked first globally in terms of " Global City Competitiveness" in the 2020–2021 Global Urban Competitiveness Report jointly released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and the United Nations Programme for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat).
| +Historical GDP of Beijing for 1978–present (SNA2008) (purchasing power parity of Chinese Yuan, as international dollar based on IMF WEO October 2022)Purchasing power parity (PPP) for Chinese yuan is estimate according to IMF WEO ([9] ) data; exchange rate of CN¥ to US$ is according to State Administration of Foreign Exchange, published on http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2022/indexch.htm China Statistical Yearbook. |
Per-capita GDP is based on mid-year population.
The single largest sub-sector remains industry, whose share of overall output has shrunk to 12.1% in 2022. The mix of industrial output has changed significantly since 2010 when the city announced that 140 highly-polluting, energy and water resource intensive enterprises would be relocated from the city in five years. The relocation of Capital Steel to neighboring Hebei province had begun in 2005. In 2013, output of automobiles, aerospace products, , pharmaceuticals, and food processing all increased.
In the farmland around Beijing, vegetables and fruits have displaced grain as the primary crops under cultivation. In 2013, the tonnage of vegetable, edible fungus and fruit harvested was over three times that of grain. In 2013, overall acreage under cultivation shrank along with most categories of produce as more land was reforested for environmental reasons.
Shijingshan, on the western outskirts of the city, is a traditional heavy industrial base for steel-making. Chemical plants are concentrated in the far eastern suburbs.
Less legitimate enterprises also exist. Urban Beijing is known for being a center of infringed goods; anything from the latest designer clothing to DVDs can be found in markets all over the city, often marketed to expatriates and international visitors.
Within China, the city ranked second in urban population after Shanghai and the third in municipal population after Shanghai and Chongqing. Beijing also ranks among the most populous cities in the world, a distinction the city has held for much of the past 800 years, especially during the 15th to early 19th centuries when it was the largest city in the world.
About 13 million of the city's residents in 2013 had local Hukou system, which entitles them to permanent residence in Beijing. The remaining 8 million residents had hukou permits elsewhere and were not eligible to receive some social benefits provided by the Beijing municipal government.
The population increased in 2013 by 455,000 or about 7% from the previous year and continued a decade-long trend of rapid growth. The total population in 2004 was 14.213 million. The population gains are driven largely by migration. The population's rate of natural increase in 2013 was a mere 0.441%, based on a birth rate of 8.93 and a mortality rate of 4.52. The gender balance was 51.6% males and 48.4% females.
Working age people account for nearly 73.6% of the population. Compared to 2004, residents age 0–14 as a proportion of the population dropped from 9.95% to 9.92% in 2013, but again increased to 12.1% in 2021. Residents over the age of 65 declined from 11.12% to 8.58%, but increased to 14.2% in 2021. From 2002 to 2011, the percentage of city residents with at least some college education nearly doubled, from 20.4% to 37.3%, and further increased to 49.1% by 2021. About 66.4% have senior secondary school education and 88.2% had reached middle school.
According to the 2010 census, nearly 96% of Beijing's population are ethnic Han Chinese. Of the 800,000 ethnic minority population living in the capital, Manchu people (336,000), Hui (249,000), Korean (77,000), Mongol (37,000) and Tujia people (24,000) constitute the five largest groups. In addition, there were 8,045 Hong Kong residents, 500 Macau residents, and 7,772 Taiwan residents along with 91,128 registered foreigners living in Beijing. A study by the Beijing Academy of Sciences estimates that in 2010 there were on average 200,000 foreigners living in Beijing on any given day including students, business travellers and tourists that are not counted as registered residents.
In 2017 the Chinese government implemented population controls for Beijing and Shanghai to fight what it called the "big city disease" which includes congestion, pollution, and shortages of education and health care services. From this policy, Beijing's population declined by 20,000 from 2016 to 2017. Some low-income people are being forcibly removed from the city as both legal and illegal housing is being demolished in some high-density residential neighborhoods. The population is being redistributed to Jing-Jin-Ji and Xiong'an New Area, the transfer to the latter expected to include 300,000-500,000 people working in government research, universities, and corporate headquarters.
Beijing has over 90 public colleges and universities, making it the largest urban public university system in Asia and the first city in China with the most higher education institutions. It is also home to the two best universities (Tsinghua and Peking) in the whole of the Asia & Oceania region and emerging countries, with their rankings at #12 and #13 places in the world, respectively by the 2025 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Both are members of the C9 League, an alliance of elite Chinese universities offering comprehensive and leading education.
Beijing also has the highest number of universities of any city in the country, representing more than one-fifth of 147 Double First-Class Universities, a national plan to develop elite Chinese universities into world-class institutions by the end of 2050. According to the U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking for 2025–2026, Beijing has the highest number of universities among major cities in the world included in the ranking, totaling 29, with 6 institutions in the top 200 and 11 institutions in the top 500. A number of Beijing's most prestigious universities consistently rank among the best in the Asia-Pacific and the world, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing Institute of Technology, China Agricultural University, Minzu University of China, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, University of International Business and Economics, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Central University of Finance and Economics. These universities were selected as "985 universities" or "211 universities" by the Chinese government in order to build world-class universities.
The city is a seat of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has been consistently ranked the No. 1 research institute in the world by Nature Index since the list's inception in 2014. The academy also runs the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is located in Beijing and ranked among the world's top five research institutions by the Nature Index. Beijing is also a site of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the China Academy of Space Technology, the China Academy of Engineering Physics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage, the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Some of the national key universities in Beijing are:
Beijing is also home to several religious institutions, Some of them are listed as follows:
The city's compulsory education system is among the best in the world: in 2018, 15-year-old students from Beijing (together with Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu) outperformed all of the other 78 participating countries in all categories (math, reading, and science) in the Program for International Student Assessment, a worldwide study of academic performance conducted by the OECD.
Beijing or Peking opera is a traditional form of Chinese theater well known throughout the nation. 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 involving gestures, movement, fighting and acrobatics. Much of Beijing opera is carried out in an archaic stage dialect quite different from Modern Standard Chinese and from the modern Beijing dialect.
Beijing cuisine is the local style of cooking. Peking duck is perhaps the best known dish. Fuling jiabing, a traditional Beijing snack food, is a pancake ( bing) resembling a flat disk with a filling made from Fu Ling, a fungus used in traditional Chinese medicine. are also common in Beijing.
The cloisonné (or Jingtailan, literally "Blue of Jingtai Emperor") metalworking technique and tradition is a Beijing art speciality, and is one of the most revered traditional crafts in China. Cloisonné making requires elaborate and complicated processes which include 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 intricate patterns and images carved into its surface, and the various decoration techniques of lacquer include "carved lacquer" and "engraved gold".
Younger residents of Beijing have become more attracted to the nightlife, which has flourished in recent decades, breaking prior cultural traditions that had practically restricted it to the upper class. Today, Houhai, Sanlitun and Wudaokou are Beijing's nightlife hotspots.
In 2012 Beijing was named as City of Design and became part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
Among the best known religious sites in the city is the Temple of Heaven ( Tiantan), located in southeastern Beijing, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties made visits for annual ceremonies of prayers to Heaven for good harvest. In the north of the city is the Temple of Earth ( Ditan), while the Temple of the Sun ( Ritan) and the Temple of the Moon ( Yuetan) lie in the eastern and western urban areas respectively. Other well-known temple sites include the Dongyue Temple, Tanzhe Temple, Miaoying Temple, White Cloud Temple, Yonghe Temple, Fayuan Temple, Wanshou Temple and Big Bell Temple. The city also has its own Confucius Temple, and a Guozijian or Imperial Academy. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1605, is the oldest Catholic church in Beijing. The Niujie Mosque is the oldest mosque in Beijing, with a history stretching back over a thousand years.
Beijing contains several well-preserved pagodas and stone pagodas, such as the towering Pagoda of Tianning Temple, which was built during the Liao dynasty from 1100 to 1120, and the Pagoda of Cishou Temple, which was built in 1576 during the Ming dynasty. Historically noteworthy stone bridges include the 12th-century Lugou Bridge, the 17th-century Baliqiao bridge, and the 18th-century Jade Belt Bridge. The Beijing Ancient Observatory displays pre-telescopic spheres dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Fragrant Hills ( Xiangshan) is a public park that consists of natural landscaped areas as well as traditional and cultural relics. The Beijing Botanical Garden exhibits over 6,000 species of plants, including a variety of trees, bushes and flowers, and an extensive peony garden. The Taoranting Park, Longtan Park, Chaoyang, Haidian Park, Milu Yuan and Zizhu Yuan parks are some of the notable recreational parks in the city. The Beijing Zoo is a center of zoological research that also contains rare animals from various continents, including the Chinese giant panda.
There are 144 museums and galleries () in the city.(Chinese) 北京地区博物馆名录（截止2008年6月） 6 January 2009 In addition to the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City and the National Museum of China, other major museums include the National Art Museum of China, the Capital Museum, the Wanshou Temple, the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, the Geological Museum of China, the Beijing Museum of Natural History and the Paleozoological Museum of China.
Located at the outskirts of urban Beijing, but within its municipality are the Ming tombs, the lavish and elaborate burial sites of thirteen Ming emperors, which have been designated as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The archaeological Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian is another World Heritage Site within the municipality, containing a wealth of discoveries, among them one of the first specimens of Homo erectus and an assemblage of bones of the gigantic hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris. There are several sections of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Great Wall of China, most notably Badaling, Jinshanling, Simatai and Mutianyu. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Beijing is the second highest earning tourist city in the world after Shanghai. Theme parks located within the city include Universal Studios Beijing and Happy Valley Beijing, both of which are among the most visited theme parks in Asia.
There are temples dedicated to the worship of the Goddess (p=Niángniáng) in the city, one of them near the Olympic Village, and they revolve around a major cult center at Mount Miaofeng. There are also many temples consecrated to the Dragon King, to the Medicine Master (p=Yàowáng), to Guan Yu, to the Fire God (p=Huǒshén), to the Caishen, temples of the Chenghuangshen, and at least one temple consecrated to the Yellow Emperor of the Big Dipper axis mundi (p=Xuānyuán Huángdì) in Pinggu District. Many of these temples are governed by the Beijing Taoist Association, such as the Fire God Temple of the Shicha Lake, while many others are not and are governed by popular committees and locals. A great Temple of Xuanyuan Huangdi will be built in Pinggu (possibly as an expansion of the already existing shrine) within 2020, and the temple will feature a statue of the deity which will be amongst the tallest in the world...
The national Chinese Taoist Association and Chinese Taoist College have their headquarters at the White Cloud Temple of Quanzhen Taoism, which was founded in 741 and rebuilt numerous times. The Beijing Dongyue Temple outside Chaoyangmen is the largest temple of Zhengyi Taoism in the city. The local Beijing Taoist Association has its headquarters at the Lüzu Temple near Fuxingmen.
The Xihuang Temple originally dates to the Liao dynasty. In 1651, the temple was commissioned by the Shunzhi Emperor to host the visit of the Fifth Dalai Lama to Beijing. Since then, this temple has hosted the 13th Dalai Lama as well as the Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Panchen Lamas.
The largest Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Beijing is the Yonghe Temple, which was decreed by the Qianlong Emperor in 1744 to serve as the residence and research facility for his Buddhist preceptor of Rölpé Dorjé the third Changkya (or living Buddha of Inner Mongolia). The Yonghe Temple is so-named because it was the childhood residence of the Yongzheng Emperor, and retains the glazed tiles reserved for imperial palaces. While the "High-level Tibetan Buddhism College of China", China's highest institution college of Tibetan Buddhism, situated near the Yonghe Temple. The Lingguang Temple of Badachu in the Western Hills also dates to the Tang dynasty. The temple's Zhaoxian Pagoda (招仙塔) was first built in 1071 during the Liao dynasty to hold a tooth relic of the Gautama Buddha. The pagoda was destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and the tooth was discovered from its foundation. A new pagoda was built in 1964. The six aforementioned temples: Guangji, Guanghua, Tongjiao, Xihuang, Yonghe and Lingguang have been designated National Key Buddhist Temples in Han Chinese Area.
In addition, other notable temples in Beijing include the Tanzhe Temple (founded in the Jin dynasty (266–420) is the oldest in the municipality), the Tianning Temple (oldest pagoda in the city), the Miaoying Temple (famed for Yuan dynasty-era white pagoda), the Wanshou Temple (home to the Beijing Art Museum) and the Big Bell Temple (Dazhong Temple).
The largest mosque in Beijing is ChangYing mosque, located in ChaoYang district, with an area of 8,400 square meters.
Other notable mosques in the old city include the Dongsi Mosque, founded in 1346; the Huashi Mosque, founded in 1415; Nan Douya Mosque, near Chaoyangmen; Jinshifang Street Mosque, in Xicheng District; and the Dongzhimen Mosque. Accessed 4 April 2016 There are large mosques in outlying Muslim communities in Haidian, Madian, Tongzhou, Changping, Changying, Shijingshan and Miyun. The China Islamic Institute is located in the Niujie neighborhood in Xicheng District.
Publications primarily aimed at international visitors and the expatriate community include the English-language periodicals Time Out Beijing, City Weekend, Beijing This Month, Beijing Talk, That's Beijing, and The Beijinger.
Famous rock bands and solo artists from Beijing include Cui Jian, Dou Wei, He Yong, Pu Shu, Tang Dynasty, Black Panther, The Flowers, 43 Baojia Street, etc.
Beijing's LeSports Center is one of the main venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The Official website of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup , FIBA.com, Retrieved 9 March 2016.
The city hosted the second Chinese National Games in 1914 and the first four National Games of China in 1959, 1965, 1975, 1979, respectively, and co-hosted the 1993 National Games with Sichuan and Qingdao. Beijing also hosted the inaugural National Peasants' Games in 1988 and the sixth National Minority Games in 1999.
In November 2013, Beijing made a bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. On 31 July 2015, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics to the city becoming the first ever to host both Summer and Winter Olympics also for the 2022 Winter Paralympics becoming the first ever to host both Summer and Winter Paralympics.
The Beijing Olympians of the American Basketball Association, formerly a Chinese Basketball Association team, kept their name and maintained a roster of primarily Chinese players after moving to Maywood, California in 2005.
China Bandy Federation is based in Beijing, one of several cities in which the potential for bandy development is explored.
Beijing also has six high-speed rail lines: the Beijing–Tianjin intercity railway, which opened in 2008; the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway, which opened in 2011; the Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway, which opened in 2012; and the Beijing–Xiong'an intercity railway and the Beijing–Zhangjiakou intercity railway, both of which opened in 2019. The Beijing–Shenyang high-speed railway was completed in 2021.
The city's main railway stations are the Beijing railway station, which opened in 1959; the Beijing West railway station, which opened in 1996; and the Beijing South railway station, which was rebuilt into the city's high-speed railway station in 2008; The Beijing North railway station, was first built in 1905 and expanded in 2009; The Qinghe railway station, was first built in 1905 and expanded in 2019; The Beijing Chaoyang railway station opened in 2021; The Beijing Fengtai railway station opened in 2022; and the Beijing Sub-Center railway station is under construction.
Smaller stations in the city including Beijing East railway station and Daxing Airport station handle mainly commuter passenger traffic. In outlying suburbs and counties of Beijing, there are over 40 railway stations.
From Beijing, direct passenger train service is available to most large cities in China. International train service is available to Mongolia, Russia, Vietnam and North Korea. Passenger trains in China are numbered according to their direction in relation to Beijing.
Within the urban core, city streets generally follow the checkerboard pattern of the ancient capital. Many of Beijing's boulevards and streets with "inner" and "outer" are still named in relation to gates in the city wall, though most gates no longer stand. Traffic jams are a major concern. Even outside of rush hour, several roads still remain clogged with traffic.
Beijing's urban design layout further exacerbates transportation problems. The authorities have introduced several bus lanes, which only public buses can use during rush hour. In the beginning of 2010, Beijing had 4 million registered automobiles. By the end of 2010, the government forecast 5 million. In 2010, new car registrations in Beijing averaged 15,500 per week.
Towards the end of 2010, the city government announced a series of drastic measures to tackle traffic jams, including limiting the number of new license plates issued to passenger cars to 20,000 a month and barring cars with non-Beijing plates from entering areas within the Fifth Ring Road during rush hour. More restrictive measures are also reserved during major events or heavily polluted weather.
To obtain a valid license plate, Beijing drivers must be selected in a lottery. As part of government policy support for the use of electric vehicles, Beijing drivers with fully electric cars have a much greater chance of being selected for a license plate. Additionally, fully electric vehicles are exempt from restrictions on which day of the week a driver may drive their vehicle.
Road signs began to be standardized with both Chinese and English names displayed, with location names using pinyin, in 2008.
As part of the urban re-development for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing's subway system was significantly expanded. On 28 December 2014, it switched to a distance-based fare system from a fixed fare for all lines except the Airport Express. Under the new system a trip under will cost Renminbi3.00(US$0.49), an additional Renminbi1.00 will be added for the next and the next until the distance for the trip reaches . For every after the original an additional Renminbi1.00 is added. For example, a trip would cost Renminbi 8.00.
There are nearly 1,000 Beijing Bus and trolleybus lines in the city, including four bus rapid transit lines. Standard bus fares are as low as ¥1.00 when purchased with the Yikatong metrocard.
Military institutions in Beijing also include academies and thinktanks such as the PLA National Defence University and Academy of Military Science, military hospitals such as the 301, 307 and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and army-affiliated cultural entities such as 1 August Film Studios and the PLA Song and Dance Troupe.
The China National Space Administration, which oversees country's space program, and several space-related state owned companies, such as CASTC and CASIC, are all based in Beijing. The Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, in Haidian District, tracks the country's Shenzhou program and uncrewed flight and other space exploration initiatives.
Each year, Beijing hosts 200–300 species of migratory birds including the common crane, black-headed gull, swan, mallard, common cuckoo, and the endangered yellow-breasted bunting. In May 2016, Common cuckoos nesting in the wetlands of Cuihu (Haidian), Hanshiqiao (Shunyi), Yeyahu (Yanqing) were tagged and have been traced as far as India, Kenya and Mozambique. Beijing Cuckoo Project Accessed 28 November 2016 In the fall of 2016, the Beijing Forest Police undertook a month-long campaign to crack down on illegal hunting and trapping of migratory birds for sale in local bird markets. Over 1,000 rescued birds of protected species including streptopelia, Eurasian siskin, crested myna, coal tit, and great tit were handed to the Beijing Wildlife Protection and Rescue Center for repatriation to the wild.
The city flowers are the Rosa chinensis and chrysanthemum. The city trees are the Chinese arborvitae (an evergreen in the cypress family) and the pagoda tree (a deciduous tree in the bean family, also called the Chinese scholar tree). The oldest scholar tree in the city was planted in what is now Beihai Park during the Tang dynasty.
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