Brief Introduction to Beijing Culture

• Overview of Beijing
  Beijing is an ancient city with a long history. Back in 3000 years ago in Zhou dynasty, Beijing, which was called Ji at the moment, had been named capital of Yan. Thereafter, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty all made Beijing their capital. Therefore, Beijing was famous for "Capital of a thousand years".
  The long history leaves Beijing precious cultural treasure. The Grate Wall, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City and Tiantan, the four sites above have been confirmed world cultural heritage by UNESCO. However, the best representatives for Beijing are the vanishing Hutongs and square courtyards. Through hundreds of years, they have become symbol of Beijing's life.
  Beijing is a fast-growing modern city with high-rise buildings, shopping malls and vast international hotels connected by an intricate freeway system crisscrossing the city.
  As Beijing has been confirmed home city of Olympics 2008, the spirit of "green Olympics, scientific Olympics and humanized Olympic" will surely bring more and more changes to Beijing.
  Everywhere, the old-timed scene and modern culture are combined to present a brand new visage of Beijing.

 

北京市（汉语拼音：Běi jīng Shì，英语：Municipality of Beijing）简称京，旧称 Peking。

方言：北京方话（Beijing dialect）。

Municipality 16,801.25 km2 (6,487 sq mi)

Weather and environment：

The city has a rather dry, monsoon-influenced humid continental climate , characterised by hot, humid summers due to the East Asian monsoon, and generally cold, windy, dry winters that reflect the influence of the vast Siberian anticyclone. Spring can bear witness to sandstorms blowing in from the Mongolian steppe, accompanied by rapidly warming, but generally dry, conditions. Autumn, like spring, sees little rain, but is crisp and short. The monthly daily average temperature in January is -3.7 °C (25.3 °F), while in July it is 26.2 °C (79.2 °F). Precipitation averages around 570 mm (22.4 in) annually, with the great majority of it falling in the summer months. Extremes have ranged from -27.4 to 42.6 °C (-17 to 109 °F).

探寻古都风物 传承人文风情

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在变化中看传统的北京 在变化中看现在的北京

The earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the caves date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic homo sapiens also lived there more recently, about 27,000 years ago. There were cities in the vicinity of the site of present-day Beijing by the 1st millennium BC, and Ji (薊/蓟), the capital of the state of Yan, one of the powers of the Warring States Period (473–221 BC), was established there.

After the fall of the Yan, the following Qin, Han, and Jin dynasties set up local prefectures in the area.During the fall of the Han, it was the seat of the warlord Gongsun Zan. During the Tang Dynasty, it became the headquarters for Fanyang jiedushi, the virtual military governor of what is now the northern Hebei region. The An Shi Rebellion began here in AD 755.

The Beijing Central Business District, or Beijing CBD (simplified Chinese: 北京商务中心区; traditional Chinese: 北京商務中心區; pinyin: Běijīng Shāngwù Zhōngxīn Qū), is the primary area of finance, media, and business services in Beijing, China. Beijing CBD occupies 3.99 km2 of the Chaoyang District on the east side of the city. Geographically situated to the east of the city center, sandwiched between the 3rd Ring Road and the 4th Ring Road, the Beijing CBD is currently undergoing large-scale development.

As Beijing is becoming one of the most important international financial centers in China, Beijing CBD was recently positioned as the secondary core area in Beijing's International Financial Center Development strategic plan published in May, 2008. Beijing CBD is also emerging as China's media center as Beijing Television Station (BTV) just moved in its new headquarters (Beijing TV Centre) in this area and the new CCTV Headquarters was officially opened on 1 January 2008.

In the eight years since the government decided to speed up construction of the district, the Beijing CBD has attracted 117 Fortune 500 businesses in the financial, media, information technology, consulting and service industries. More than 60 percent of overseas-funded companies in Beijing are in the CBD. A majority of foreign embassies in Beijing - the No 1, No 2 and No 3 embassy districts are now concentrated in the Beijing CBD and its neighboring areas.