About Beijing

Beijing is the current capital of China and one of its ancient capitals. It is the world’s most populous national capital city, with over 21 million residents within an administrative area of 16,410.5 km2. Beijing is a global city and one of the world’s leading centers for culture, diplomacy, politics, finance, business and economics, education, research, language, tourism, media, sport, science and technology and transportation.

Beijing was established as a capital of China in the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century. The capital moved to Nanjing later for a while, but the emperors of the Ming Dynasty soon returned the capital to Beijing, where it remained throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the beginning of the Republic of China in 1912. Much of the basic layout of the city and many of the major sites were first established in the Ming Dynasty, though most of the surviving buildings date back to the Qing Dynasty.

ORIENTATION

Beijing is very large and very spread-out. The city still follows the basic outline of the Imperial City with a clear north-south and many streets following a grid. The loop line of the subway and the second-ring road roughly correspond to the location of the city wall, most of which was destroyed. The Forbidden City (Gugong) and Tiananmen Square lie in the center of the city. There are 16 administrative districts, namely: Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shijingshan, Haidian, Mentougou, Fangshan, Tongzhou, Shunyi, Changping, Daxing, Huairou, Pinggu, Miyun, and Yanqing.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS

Beijing consists of 16 urban and sub-urban districts. They are Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shijingshan, Haidian, Mentougou, Fangshan, Tongzhou, Shunyi, Changping, Daxing, Huairou, Pinggu, Miyun and Yanqing.

WEATHER

Beijing has four distinctive seasons. July and August are the rainiest months. June, July and August have higher humidity and very hot temperatures. December, January and February have average highs just above freezing and accompanied by strong winds.

In April and May, the warmth of spring makes flowers bloom and trees flourish. September and October generally offer good weather and comfortable temperature which is also called the “golden season”.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
High (ºC)	1.11	3.89	11.11	19.44	26.11	30	30.56	29.44	25.56	18.89	10	2.78
Low (ºC)	-9.44	-7.22	-1.11	7.22	12.78	17.78	21.11	20	13.89	7.22	-0.56	-7.22
Precip(mm)	0.1	0.2	0.4	1	1.1	2.8	6.9	7.2	1.9	0.7	0.2	0.1
High (ºF)	34	39	52	67	79	86	87	85	78	66	50	37
Low (ºF)	15	19	30	45	55	64	70	68	57	45	31	19

TIME ZONE

The time difference between Beijing and the Greenwich Mean Time is 8 hours (Beijing is ahead of GMT). China uses only one standard time, i.e. Beijing time, throughout the country.

LANGUAGE

Mandarin Chinese is the language of Beijing, often spoken with a heavy and distinctive Beijing accent. Although most Chinese do not speak English, including taxi drivers, tourist sites and the subway have many English signs, and hotel staff in major hotels speak enough English that most travelers will have little trouble getting around even without a guide.

CURRENCY

The official currency in China is Renminbi, RMB, and the currency unit is Yuan, or kuai in oral Chinese. 1 Yuan = 10 Jiao (or Mao in oral Chinese), 1 Jiao = 10 fen, i.e. 1 yuan =10 jiao =100 fen. The current exchange rate is $1 ≈ RMB 7.2 Yuan. You can change your currency at the airport, hotels or banks. Passport is needed in currency exchange. Keep your receipt for you will need it at the airport to exchange RMB back into your original currency.

WATER AND ELECTRICITY

In China the standard voltage is 220 V and the frequency is 50 Hz. The power plugs and sockets are of type A, C and I. The standard voltage is 220 V and the standard frequency is 50 Hz.You can use your electric appliances in China, if the standard voltage in your country is in between 220 - 240 V (as is in the UK, Europe, Australia and most of Asia and Africa).

Normally in China, tap water needs to be boiled first to become drinkable. Be sure to drink boiled water or bottled mineral water.

TRANSPORTATION:

Beijing is a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks. The Beijing Capital International Airport has been the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic (Asia’s busiest) since 2010, and, as of 2016, the city’s subway network is the busiest and longest in the world. The Beijing Daxing International Airport, a second international airport in Beijing, is the largest single-structure airport terminal in the world.

USEFUL NUMBERS

110 ....................Police

119 ....................Fire

120....................Ambulance

114 ...................Local Telephone Information

117 ...................Time Check

121 ...................Weather Information

TOURIST HIGHLIGHTS

Beijing is home to many national monuments and museums and has seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites—the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, Zhoukoudian, and parts of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal—all of which are popular tourist locations. Siheyuans, the city’s traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing.

Tian'anmen Square

Situated in the center of Beijing, Tian’anmen Square is the largest square in the World. Tian’anmen on its north originally is the entrance gate of the imperial city in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which was first built in Yongle Year 15 of Ming Dynasty. Its height is 33.7 meters whose middle entrance was only for the emperor, and it was the place that emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties announced their edicts. After getting out of the Tian’anmen, you will enter the largest city center square in the world—Tian’anmen Square, whose total area is 44 hectares, with 500 meter width from east to west and 880 meter length from north to south. Its ground was paved using light granite bar stones which had been processed by special technology. Flag-hoisting and flag-lowering are the most solemn ceremonies.

The Great Wall

The Great Wall is a world famous cultural heritage and spiritual symbol of China. It winds its way through the northern part of China, with a total length of over 6350 kilometers and over 16 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Due to the fact that the well-kept part of the Great Wall locates inside Beijing city, it became the best choice for tourists to visit. Who know how many people’s aspirations have been inspired by the sentence “He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man.”!

The Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is located in southern Beijing. It is included in the UNESCO world heritage list in 1998. With an area of 2.7 million square meters, it is the largest of its kind in the country. Built in 1420, the 18th year of the reign of Ming Emperor Yongle, the temple was where emperors went to worship heaven for good harvests.

The temple consists of two parts--the inner altar and outer altar. The main buildings are in the inner altar, on the north-south axis. At the southern end are the Imperial Vault of Heaven(1) and the Circular Mound Altar(2). On the northern end are the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests(3) and the Hall of Imperial Zenith(4). The structures at both ends are connected by a 360-meter-long walk. There is also the Hall of Abstinence(5) inside the West Heavenly Gate in which the emperor fasted for three days and bathed before prayer.

The temple's main building is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, where the emperor prayed for good harvests. The round hall, 38 meters high and 30 meters in diameter, has triple eaves and a cone-shaped deep blue tile roof crowned with a gilded knob. Surrounding the hall is a six-meter-high spacious circular stone terrace on three levels, each edged by a balustrade of carved white marble.

The Circular Mound Altar is one of the more important buildings and is a three-tier white stone terrace enclosed by two walls. Geometrically designed, the altar has a taiji rock at the center of the top terrace. If you stand on the rock and speak in a normal voice, your voice will sound louder and more resonant to yourself than to others around you, because the sound waves reflected by the balustrades are bounced back to the center by the round wall.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven, the place to lay the memorial tablets to the heaven is to the north of the Circular Mound Altar. It is very similar in structure to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests but is smaller. The Vault, made of brick and timber, is 19 meters high and 15.6 meters in diameter. It is surrounded by a circular wall of polished brick with an opening to the south. This is known as the Echo Wall(6) and is 3.72 meters high, 61.5 meters in diameter and 193 meters in circumference. If a person whispers close to the wall at any point, his voice can be heard distinctly at any other point along the wall.

Around the Hall of Abstinence are two imperial ditches and they are circled by a 163-bay walkway. The Abstinence Bronze Man Pavilion and Time and Memorial Tablets Pavilion are at he Celestial Terrace of the main hall. To add the solemnity of the occasion, the bells in the two bell towers at the northeast end were struck when the emperor prayed for good harvests.

The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace, in Chinese Yihe Yuan, is now the largest and the most well-preserved imperial garden in China, counted as one of the four famous Chinese imperial gardens (the other three being Chengde Summer Palace, Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden, and Suzhou Lingering Garden). It was listed as World Heritage by UNESCO in 1998.

Situated in Haidian District, 15km from downtown Beijing, the Summer Palace occupies an area of 290 hectares, with the lake taking up three quarters of its total area.

It is designed around Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill as the key features, modeled on West Lake in Hangzhou, and draws from design techniques and artistic conception of gardens from the south of China. This large landscaped and well-preserved garden is known as the Chinese imperial garden museum.

FOOD AND LOCAL SPECIALTIES

Food is a highlight of a visit to Beijing. Specialties include Peking Duck, Mongolian Hotpot, and noodles with meat sauce (zhajiang mian) served up in numerous Old Beijing restaurants. Many people will also enjoy home-style (jiachang) cooking, dumplings (jiaozi or guotie), and Xinjiang cooking from China's far northwest.

Beijing Roast Duck

Peking Duck is probably the most famous Beijing dish. The Duck is roasted as a whole. The skin tastes crispy and the meat inside is tender. When eating, the duck is cut into slices, wrapped in lotus-leaf-like pancake with sliced scallion, sliced cucumber and sweet flour paste.

Instant-boiled Mutton / Mutton Hot Pot

This dish is originated from Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368 AD). The mutton is cut into thin slices and boiled in the copper pot quickly. The boiled mutton is dipped into a condiment sauce made of sesame paste, sesame oil, soy sauce, pickled leek flowers, coriander and so on before eating.

Noodles with Soy Bean Paste (Zhajiangmian)

It’s a kind of Beijing noodles popular in Beijing, Shandong and other northern areas in China. The soy bean paste is made of salted and fermented soya paste, chopped pork, sweet flour paste, ginger and green onion. The boiled noodles are topped with finished soy bean paste and other shredded vegetables like cucumber and bean sprout.

Best Beijing Cuisine Restaurants

★Jingweizhai Restaurant

Chinese name: 京味斋 jīng wèi zhāi

Address: No.18, Xinyuan Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing

★Si Shi Tong Tang

Chinese name: 四世同堂

Address: No.59, middle East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Shopping in Beijing

Wangfujing Street

Chinese name: 王府井大街（wáng fǔ jǐng dà jiē）

Beijing Wangfujing Street, as one of the symbols of Beijing's commerce, is the most well-known and prosperous shopping street with modern and fashion trends. Located near the city center in Dongcheng District, the street is one of four most prosperous business zones in Beijing.

It is 1,600 meters (1 mile) long ranging from Chang'an Avenue in the south to National Art Museum of China in the north. With a history of 700 years around, it got the name Wangfu (royal mansion) Jing (well) because there used to be eight royal mansions and a well with sweet water on the street. Currently, it is the busiest street in this city and there are 600,000 people every day come and go and on holidays, the number can rise to 1,200,000.

As the first famous business zone in this city, Wangfujing Shopping Street houses a wide variety of shops and boutiques, some of which are of world-famous brands. Apart from that, there are also many time honored stores with traditional commodities standing in the street for hundreds of years. Nowadays Beijing Wangfujing Street is a modern commercial street which can be paralleled with Champs-Elysees in Paris.

Beijing Xidan Commercial Street

Chinese name: 西单商业街（xī dān shāng yè jiē）

Lying 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) west of Tiananmen Square, Xidan Commercial Street is one of three traditional business quarters in Beijing, enjoying the equal fame with Wangfujing and Dashilar streets. With a total length of 5.4 kilometers (3.4 miles), it starts from Xuanwumen Gate in the south and stretches to Xinjiekou crossing in the north. The history of Beijing Xidan Commercial Street can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). At that time, it was an essential crossing leading to the downtown area from southwest of the suburban area. Since then, Xidan has blossomed as a commercial shopping center in the western part of Beijing. Nowadays, the North Street of the commercial quarter is the most prosperous section of Beijing Xidan Commercial Street, with many top shopping malls, department stores, restaurants and entertainment centers scattered around. As is youth and fashion themed, it attracts numerous young people to gather here. Here enumerate some popular sites that visitors are expected to reach.

Hongqiao Pearl Market

Chinese Name: 红桥珍珠市场 (hóng qiáo zhēn zhū shì chǎng)

Pear Market address is No. 9 Tiantan Road, Dongcheng District of Beijing, which is opposite to Tiantan Park. Also known as Hongqiao Market, it is a market famous for dealing with pearls around the world. More than 1,000,000 visitors come to Pearl Market Beijing to buy pearls yearly. Even the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been to Pearl Market three times as she was very impressed with the beautiful pearls. Apart from pearls, the market also offers seafood, digital products and silk.

Beijing Silk Street

Chinese Name: 秀水街 (xiù shuǐ jiē)

Silk Market Beijing, aka Silk Street, Xiushui Street or Xiushui Market, is a prosperous shopping market in the city, located at No. 8 East Xiushui Street, Chaoyang District. Used to be an outdoor market, it now becomes a shopping mall, which accommodates over 1,000 retailers and is regarded as one of the symbols of Beijing together with the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and roast duck. Many foreign visitors, including some celebrities, enjoy Silk Market Beijing for shopping or having their clothes tailor-made. The former president of the US, George Bush, once went there with his daughter to buy some silk robes, and the wife of Jacques Rogge (8th President of the International Olympic Committee) also went there to buy traditional Chinese dough figurines.

Shopping Tips

1. Shops in China usually open from 9:00am to 7:00pm, some will open to 9:00pm. Opening hours will be longer in summer and shorter in Winter.
2. Bargaining is necessary in markets and small shops.
3. Credit cards including Master Card, Visa, American Express, JCB, Diners Club, Million, Federal are accepted in most large Chinese department stores.But small market or shops only accept cash.
4. Check carefully the quality of the goods you want to buy and always ask for a receipt.
5. If you want buy high value items, you should go to regular legal shops, not the cheap stores.
6. Always take care of your wallet and bags when wandering in a crowd market.
7.Things like jade carvings, cultural relics and some other items are not allowed to take out of China. Confirm before your purchase.