What was beijing original name

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Layering Courtyard Hutel Qianmen. The Opposite House. Michaels House Beijing. Peking Garden Hotel. Waldorf Astoria Beijing. Peking Station Youth Hostel. By Martin Belam on 22 August Read other recent posts about: Olympics. They seem to have fallen in line since, but for a very long time The Independent persisted with 'Peking' on the grounds that the Chinese government wanted the Western media to call their capital Beijing, and the paper wasn't minded to do as it was told by the Chinese government.

I only heard of Beijing when I moved to North America. If I had heard the word beijing I would probably think it is something that is served with a side of rice.

So, when exactly did Peking become Beijing? And why? Greek George 3 September They called their capital Zhongdu. During their short reign, Zhongdu quickly grew in size and population. The Jin Dynasty built a walled palace in the center of their city, and the population grew from 82, in to , in In the early s, the Mongols conquered large empires and tribal domains in central Asia and northeastern Asia.

One of the last of the empires that they conquered was the Manchu Jin Empire. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols captured Zhongdu in and looted and burned it. They first called it "Yanjing. Under the Mongols, the population of the city initially dropped to 91, in The population of the Yanjing region dropped to , from about 1.

When Kublai Khan became leader of the Yuan Empire — , he was unable to retain control of the western half of the Mongol Empire.

For the Mongol dynastic clan, the new capital that they called "Dadu" was at an ideal central location for controlling their vast Yuan Empire. It was at the northern extreme of the vast ancient North China Plain and Yellow River basin heartland and astride the mountain passes that connected the south to their vast territory in the north.

They also had access to the sea at their ports in Tianjin for trade and to attack other countries. The Yuan clan finished their new palace complex in and the rest of the city by They constructed many canals, artificial lakes, and waterways, and Marco Polo wrote about these wonders of engineering and Dadu's astounding size and prosperity.

The most important Yuan construction project was expanding and extending the Grand Canal so that it stretched all the way from Dadu to Hangzhou in the Yangtze River basin. They could then import sufficient quantities of food so that Dadu grew to be twice the size of the former Jin capital of Zhongdu. By , the city had , residents with another 2.

At this time, it was one of the biggest cities in the world and second only to Hangzhou in population in the Yuan Empire. The Yuan Empire fell through natural disasters, civil war between Mongol leaders, and large-scale rebellions in several regions. Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing in and made it his capital.

Then his army attacked the Yuan empire capital of Dadu in and burned down their palaces. The Yuan dynasty was driven north over the mountains. For the first decades under Ming rule, "Beiping," as the Ming called the city, became impoverished, and the population dropped dramatically. By , the city's population had been reduced to 95,, and only , people lived in the region surrounding it.

Emperor Yongle who reigned — was appointed ruler of Beiping and the Beiping region when he was young, and it became his base of power. After conquering Nanjing in , from to , Yongle prepared Beiping to be his new capital and conducted a massive reconstruction program.

He renamed the city "Beijing. From onwards, Emperor Yongle settled in Beijing to escape the opposition to his rule. He feared the people and aristocrats in Nanjing and the rest of the south who viewed him as a usurper. Even though Beijing was largely destroyed, essential infrastructure such as the canals were still in place. They only required renovation.

The Yuan had shown that the Beijing region could support a very large population and could be made very prosperous and that the location was strategic in a number of ways militarily and for trading purposes. Yongle's key building projects were the huge fortified palace called the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and rebuilding the Grand Canal. To protect himself, he directly supervised the building of the Forbidden City that was a huge palace fortress.

He hoped to make it impregnable. They started constructing the Forbidden City in and used , skilled artisans and up to a million workers and slaves. The Guinness Book of World Records calls it the "largest palace in the world. The Temple of Heaven was another of the big projects.

They built it from to together with the Forbidden City. Their Grand Canal improvements were carried out from to The canal was an essential part of the emperor's grand plan for Beijing and his fortress because it enabled them to quickly and economically transport building materials, supplies and personnel. A total of , laborers dredged the canal bed in Shandong and built new canal locks. Once it was finished, they accelerated the construction on the new capital. In , Yongle formally inaugurated Beijing as the imperial capital.

The new canal enabled deliveries of grain to exceed , tons annually to feed the growing population. Beijing kept growing. In , the southern part of the Outer City that included the Temple of Heaven was enclosed with a wall. The outer city around the inner walled section continued to grow in size. The total population of Beijing grew to , residents in , and another 2.

So it once again reached the size it had under the Mongols more than years earlier. Beijing was the largest city in the world from to In , they built the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon in this outer ring where the commoners lived.

From about onwards until , they strengthened it particularly around Beijing and vastly lengthened it so that it stretched 8, km 5, miles from Jiayu Pass in the west to Shanhai Pass and the sea in the east, and included another stretch in Manchuria. The wall and forts along it were built especially strong around the Beijing region. It is a world architectural wonder. It is interesting that after taking a defensive posture against their northern enemies and building the Great Wall, the Ming Dynasty retained Beijing as their capital city even though they lost much of their northwestern territory to the Jurchens by