LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Beijing: Beijing City
built 655 days ago
Beijing originally was occupied some 500,000 years ago, so it is a city with its fair share of history. The city is huge, extending across 50 miles, but has a very well-laid-out design with the impressive Forbidden City at its center. In modern times the city has been undergoing a makeover fueled by the 2008 Olympic Games. Thanks to the newfound wealth of many Chinese, the leisure and entertainment industries are thriving with new restaurants and an abundance of shopping. Culturally, Beijing is rich with many of China’s most famous landmarks such as the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square in the city itself. Beijing is no longer the gray capital but provides a colorful environment in which to study.
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Beijing is situated at the northern tip of the roughly triangular North China Plain, which opens to the south and east of the city. Mountains to the north, northwest and west shield the city and northern China's agricultural heartland from the encroaching desert steppes. The northwestern part of the municipality, especially Yanqing County and Huairou District, are dominated by the Jundu Mountains, while the western part of the municipality is framed by the Xishan Mountains. The Great Wall of China, which stretches across the northern part of Beijing Municipality, made use of this rugged topography to defend against nomadic incursions from the steppes. Mount Dongling in the Xishan ranges and on the border with Hebei is the municipality's highest point, with an altitude of 2303 m. Major rivers flowing through the municipality include the Yongding River and the Chaobai River, part of the Hai River system, and flowing in a southerly direction. Beijing is ... the northern terminus of the Grand Canal of China which was built across the North China Plain to Hangzhou.
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Beijing is the capital of the People's Republic of China, and the country's political and cultural center. It has a long history that dates back more than 3000 years, and has served as the center of power for more than 500 of those years. Beijing is not only China's political center, but ... its cultural one. The Chinese language dialect spoken in Beijing, putonghua, serves as the model for the rest of the country to follow, and is the language of instruction taught in schools across the country. All of China, ranging from the Western portions of the country to the Southern reaches, sets their clocks to Beijing time. Beijing is the model for a distinctively Chinese development, and is a city that has undergone drastic changes over the past 20 years; an example for the rest of China to emulate.
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In accordance with traditional Chinese town planning, Beijing was designed along a north-south central axis; this line represented the imperial authority and it ran through many key government offices, buildings, imperial residences, and main gates. After the Communist revolution in 1949, most walls of the old city were demolished and replaced with thoroughfares. However, several of the old gates have been preserved. During the 1950s Tiananmen (the Gate of Heavenly Peace... known as Tian’an Men), located along the city’s north-south axis south of the Forbidden City, was rebuilt and its square to the south was enlarged to hold crowds for parades. Major installations were added in and around Tiananmen Square, including the Great Hall of the People, built in 1959, where the national legislature meets. Several blocks east of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square is Wangfujing Avenue, the city’s most famous shopping district.
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Beijing is at the heart of the most highly populated nation on Earth. The city has been China's capital since 1406 when the Ming dynasty Emperor Yongle used the city as a northern base against the encroaching Mongols. He was responsible for building the imposing Forbidden City 14 years later, made world famous by Bertolucci's film, The Last Emperor. The entire empire was ruled from these 200 acres of palaces and temples until the 1911 Chinese Revolution. Beijing's modern buildings are equally impressive, such as the Great Hall of the People and Mao's Mausoleum, built in 1976.
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Beijing is China's political, cultural and educational capital. Its location has been continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years. Beijing is now home to more than 15 million people. As China's economy grows, more people from overseas are either visiting or living in Beijing. Beijing has over 70,000 residents from overseas and more than 3.5 million overseas visitors annually. Beijing is China's third largest city in terms of population, after Chongqing and Shanghai.
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Beijing City