Beijing

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Capital of China; parts of the northeast municipal boundary coincide with sections of the Great Wall of China; population (2001 est) 6,995,500. The municipality of Beijing has an area of 17,800 sq km/6,871 sq mi and a population (1996) of 12,590,000. Industries include engineering and the production of steel, motor vehicles, textiles, and petrochemicals; the city is also a major centre of printing and publishing.

Features
Tiananmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) and Tiananmen Square (in 1989 the site of student protest violently suppressed by the army) ; the Forbidden City (the Imperial Palace known as the Gu Gong), built between 1406 and 1420 by the Ming emperor Yong Le; the Great Hall of the People (1959), seat of the National People's Congress; the Museum of China's History and Revolution; the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (1977); the Summer Palace built by the Empress Dowager Ci Xi (damaged by European powers in 1900, but restored in 1903 and after 1949); the Old Summer Palace (original Summer Palace destroyed by French and British troops during the Second Opium War, 1856–60); the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan); and the Ming tombs 50 km/30 mi to the northwest. Beijing is the leading educational and cultural centre of China: Beijing University (1898) and Tsinghua University (1911) are the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the country and the capital also contains over 50 other institutions of higher education and research. Other notable cultural features of the capital include the Palace Museum, the Arthur M Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology (1993), the Beijing Opera, the National Art Gallery and the Beijing Zoo.

History
Records of earliest settlements date back to 1000 BC. Beijing developed substantially as the 13th-century capital (known as Dadu) of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) the capital was moved to Nanjing for 35 years, and Beijing was renamed Beiping (Northern Peace). It was called Beijing (Northern Capital) when it became capital again from 1421. In 1928 the nationalist Guomindang returned the capital to Nanjing and gave Beijing its former name of Beiping. It was held by Japan from 1937 to 1945. In 1949 the new communist government shifted the capital back to the city and renamed it Beijing.

The stars stand for the two islands. Red recalls the struggle for independence. Yellow is said to represent the country's cocoa plantations. Effective date: 12 July 1975. >>