Imperial City, Beijing

The Imperial City (Chinese: 皇城; pinyin: Huángchéng; literally: "Imperial City"; Manchu: Dorgi hoton, literally "the inner city") is a section of the city of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with the Forbidden City at its center. It refers to the collection of gardens, shrines, and other service areas between the Forbidden City and the Inner City of ancient Beijing. The Imperial City was surrounded by a wall and accessed through six gates and it includes such historical places as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen, Zhongnanhai, Beihai Park, Zhongshan Park, Jingshan, Imperial Ancestral Temple, and Xiancantan.

Construction

In the Yuan dynasty, Beijing was known as Dadu, and the Imperial City formed the centre of the city. In 1368, the Ming armies conquered Dadu, and changed its name to "Beiping" (the two characters meaning "north" and "peace" or "pacified"), with the capital moved to Nanjing. Because the Imperial City was untouched by battle, most of the Imperial City survived the war; however, in 1369, the Hongwu Emperor ordered that the Imperial City be demolished.

Free imperial city

In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term Free and Imperial Cities (German: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded Free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt, Latin: urbs imperialis libera), was used from the 15th century to denote a self-ruling city that enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. An imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and as such, was subordinate only to the emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town (Landstadt) which was subordinate to a territorial prince – be it an ecclesiastical lord (prince-bishop, prince-abbot) or a secular prince (duke (Herzog), margrave, count (Graf), etc.).

Origin

The evolution of some German cities into self-ruling constitutional entities of the Empire was slower than that of the secular and ecclesiastical princes. In the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities were promoted by the emperor to the status of Imperial Cities (Reichsstädte; Urbes imperiales), essentially for fiscal reasons. Those cities, which had been founded by the German kings and emperors in the 10th through 13th centuries and had initially been administered by royal/imperial stewards (Vögte), gradually gained independence as their city magistrates assumed the duties of administration and justice; some prominent examples are Colmar, Hagenau and Mulhouse in Alsace or Memmingen and Ravensburg in upper Swabia.

Imperial City

Imperial City may refer to Rome and:

Places

Fictional

Other

It can also be a generic term for a major city that dominates the economic activities of a large region and which also builds impressive public and private structures and cultural institutions, even if it possesses a democratic government within the framework of a larger republic (for example, as described in the book Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin by Gray Brechin).

Imperial City, Huế

The Imperial City (Vietnamese: Kinh thành Huế) is a walled fortress and palace in the city of Huế, the former imperial capital of Vietnam.

Characteristics

The grounds of the Imperial City are protected by fortified ramparts 2 kilometers by 2 kilometers, and ringed by a moat. The water in the moat is routed from the Huong River (Perfume River) through a series of sluice gates. This enclosure is the Citadel (Kinh thành). Inside the Citadel is the Imperial City (Hoàng thành), with a perimeter wall some 2.5 kilometers in length. Within the Imperial City is the Purple Forbidden City (Tử cấm thành), a term similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Access to the innermost enclosure is restricted to the Nguyễn imperial family.

History

In June 1802 Nguyễn Ánh took control of Vietnam and proclaimed himself Emperor Gia Long. His rule was recognized by China in 1804. Gia Long consulted with geomancers to decide which was the best place for a new palace and citadel to be built. After the geomancers had decided on a suitable site in Huế, building began in 1804. Thousands of workers were ordered to produce a wall and moat, 10 kilometers long. Initially the walls were earthen, but later these earthen walls were replaced by stone walls, 2 meters thick.

Beijing

Beijing is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world.

Its total population in 2013 was 21,150,000. The city proper is the 2nd most populous in the world. The metropolis, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China.

Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by urban population after Shanghai and is the nation's political, cultural and educational center. It is home to the headquarters of most of China's largest state-owned companies, and is a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks. The Beijing Capital International Airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic.

Beijing (disambiguation)

Beijing, literally northern capital in Chinese may refer to the modern city of Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, or any of several other Northern Capitals in Chinese history including:

China Railways BJ

Beijing, mostly referred to as BJ, is a diesel-hydraulic locomotive used in the People's Republic of China. It is named after the capital city of China, Beijing.

BJ were made in two different versions, a standard version and a kou'an (port) version. China Railways DF7D, a diesel electric locomotive based on DF7B, has a similar appearance to the Beijing locomotive.

North Korea

From 2002 the Korean State Railway has received a number of BJ class locomotives second-hand from China. They are used mostly for heavy shunting and on local freight trains around P'yŏngyang. Thirty have been delivered, numbered in the 내연301 - 내연330 series (내연 = Naeyŏn, "internal combustion"); most are still painted in their original Chinese blue livery, but a few have been repainted into the standard North Korean scheme of light blue over dark green.

References