Tuesday, May 5, 2009

This is a new file, would you like to create it?This is what Beijing is: ancient but lively, extensive but profound, high and far but intimate, infatuating but inscrutable. It is simple and pure---so simple and so pure that you will know it is Beijing at a glance. It is, at the same time, so colorful and so rich in contents that it will never be possible for you to sum up your description of it by means of a pithy statement. No matter whether it is about the remote and profound history, the present realities vibrant with life, the all-pervasive atmosphere of grandeur and majesty, or the simple and honest behavior of the common people, they will all come to you in rapid succession and stand face to face with you the moment you enter Beijing so that you will not be able to see them clearly and will be at a loss as to which of them to begin your study from. It may be said with some degree of assurance that anyone who wants to understand Beijing will feel that he/she does not know by what door or gate he/she can get in. So you must first find the gate which is the entrance to the city. Of all the gates of Beijing, Tian An Men (the Gate of Heavenly Peace) is of course the most important one. Tian An Men is the emblem of the capital city Beijing. The city of Beijing in the era of the Ming and Qing dynasties was a "city of cities", because it was made up of three layers of city wall or, in other words, three concentric city walls. The innermost circle of this city of cities was what is commonly called the "Forbidden City" or "Palace City". Its wall was 6 li (3,000 meters) in circumference and has four gates, namely the Front Gate, the Gate of Divine Prowess, the Eastern Gate and the Western Gate. The central or second circle was the wall of the imperial city, which was 18 li (9,000 meters) in circumference and also had four gates, namely the Heavenly Peace Gate (Tian An Men), the Earthly Peace Gate, the Eastern Peace Gate and Western Peace Gate. The outmost circle was the capital city wall, which was a two-layer wall. The inner city wall was 46 li (23,000 meters) in circumference and had nine gates.

Tags: beijing, Forbidden city, History, tibet china Last modified 21:54 Tue, 5 May 2009 by lilichinese. Accessed 166 times Children What Links Here Share