Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the monuments to the heroes of the revolution, the great hall of people, the National Museum of China, and the Chairman Mao Zedong Memorial Hall (with Mao's embalmed body). Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic in the square on Oct. 1, 1949, an anniversary still observed there. Tiananmen Square is within the top ten largest city squares in the world (440,500 m² – 880×500 m or 109 acres – 960×550 yd). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.

Outside China, the square is best known in recent memory as the focal point of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, a pro-democracy movement which ended on 4 June 1989 with the declaration of martial law in Beijing by the government and the shooting of several hundred, or possibly thousands, of civilians by soldiers.

Tiananmen

The Tiananmen (simplified Chinese: 天安门; traditional Chinese: 天安門; pinyin: Tiān'ānmén; literally: "Gate of Heavenly Peace") is a famous monument in Beijing, the capital of the China. It is widely used as a national symbol. First built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen is often referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City. However, the Meridian Gate (午门) is the first entrance to the Forbidden City proper, while Tiananmen was the entrance to the Imperial City, within which the Forbidden City was located. Tiananmen is located to the north of Tiananmen Square, separated from the plaza by Chang'an Avenue.

Name

The Chinese name of the gate (天安门/天安門, pronounced Tiān'ānmén), is made up of the Chinese characters for "heaven," "peace" and "gate" respectively, which is why the name is conventionally translated as "The Gate of Heavenly Peace". However, this translation is somewhat misleading, since the Chinese name is derived from the much longer phrase "receiving the mandate from heaven, and pacifying the dynasty." (受命于天，安邦治國). The Manchu transliteration, Abkai elhe obure duka, lies closer to the original meaning of the gate and can be literally translated as the "Gate of Heavenly Peacemaking." The gate has a counterpart in the northern end of the imperial city called Di'anmen (地安门, Dì'ānmén; Manchu: Na i elhe obure duka), which may be roughly translated as the "Gate of Earthly Peacemaking."

Tiananmen (disambiguation)

The Tiananmen is the main entrance to the Imperial Palace Grounds in Beijing. Tiananmen can also mean: