This article is about the name of the cityBeijing that is currently the capital of the People's Republic of China. For other uses, seeBeijing (disambiguation).
A 1584 map of China byAbraham Ortelius (based on a manuscript map byLuiz Jorge de Barbuda (Ludovicus Georgius), with Beijing marked asC[ivitas] Paquin (to the right which is north on the map)
"Beijing" is from pinyinBěijīng, which is romanized from北京, the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various news organizations, governments, and international agencies over the next decade.[1]
Look upBeijing or北京 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
TheChinese characters北 ("north") and京 ("capital") together mean the "Northern Capital". The name was first used during the reign of theMing dynasty'sYongle Emperor, who made his northern fief a second capital, along withNanjing (南京, the "Southern Capital"), in 1403 after successfully dethroning his nephew during theJingnan Campaign. The name was restored in 1949 at the founding of thePeople's Republic of China.
Portugal was the first European country to contact China in modern times. In Portuguese, the city is calledPequim. This name appeared in the letters ofFrancis Xavier in 1552.[2] It transferred to English as "Pekin"[3] and to French asPékin.
Jesuit missionaryMartino Martini used "Peking" inDe bello Tartarico historia (The Tartary [Manchu] War) (1654) andNovus Atlas Sinensis (New Atlas of China) (1655).[4] In 1665, Martini's work was reissued as part ofAtlas Maior (great atlas), a much-praised atlas by Dutch publisherJoan Blaeu.
In English, both "Pekin" and "Peking" remained common until the 1890s, when the Imperial Post Office adopted Peking.[5]
Beginning in 1979, the PRC government encouraged use ofpinyin.The New York Times adopted "Beijing" in 1986,[6] with all major American media soon following. Elsewhere in theAnglosphere, theBBC switched in 1990.[7] "Peking" is still employed in terms such as "Pekingese", "Peking duck", "Peking Man" and various others, as well as being retained in the name ofPeking University.
Entrance to the Peiping Municipal Government office, 1935
The city has had many other names. The chronological list below sets out both the names of the city itself, and, in earlier times, the names of theadministrative entities covering the city today.
Ji: The first major known settlement was the eponymous capital of the ancientJi state between the 11th and 7th centuries BC. The settlement was also known as Jicheng. It was located in the current city'sGuang'anmen neighborhood south of theBeijing West railway station.
Yan: Ji was conquered byYan around the 7th century BC but was employed as its conqueror's new capital. Although the official name remained as Ji, the city also became known as Yan and Yanjing ("Capital of Yan"). The name was employed in the titles ofAn Lushan (as Emperor of Yan),Liu Rengong (as King of Yan), and thePrinces of Yan. TheKhitans of the 10th- to 12th-centuryLiao dynasty fully restored the name Yanjing, and it remains a name for Beijing in literary usage today, as reflected in the locally brewedYanjing Beer and the formerYenching University (since merged intoPeking University).
Youzhou andFanyang: Under theTang dynasty, being the seat of theYou Prefecture, the city generally employedYouzhou as its name. During theTianbao Era of EmperorXuanzong, however, You Prefecture was renamedFanyang Commandery, and the name Fanyang became associated with the city as well.
Nanjing: In the 10th and 12th centuries, the northerlyLiao dynasty restored the name Yanjing. They also knew the city as Nanjing as it was the southernmost of their secondary capitals.
Khanbaliq: TheMongolianYuan dynasty originally restored the name Yanjing before constructing a new capital adjacent to the former settlement. This settlement was calledDadu[18] in Chinese andDaidu in Mongolian.[19] (AsKhanbaliq, it was noted asCambuluc[20] byMarco Polo.) This city gradually absorbed the former settlements around the area.
Beiping: Under theMing dynasty, the city itself was initially known as Peiping. The name reads literally as "Northern Peace", although its usage and connotations are closer to the idea of "Northern Plains".[citation needed]
Shuntian: When the usurpingYongle Emperor established his base of Beiping as a secondary capital in 1403, he renamed the town Shuntian and the province surrounding itBeizhili to mimic the names of Yingtian (modernNanjing) and the province of Zhili that surrounds it.[21]
Jingshi andBeijing: When thepalace was finally completed in 1420, theYongle Emperor moved the majority of his court north. The name Jingshi ceased to be used for Yingtian and was now employed for Shuntian. The area around Yingtian became known asNanjing while Beijing was used to describe the area directly administered by the capital (generally modernHebei).[21]
Beiping (thenromanized asPeiping), in both its connotations, was restored as the name in 1928 by theRepublic of China following its reconquest of Peking from the warlords during theNorthern Expedition.[20] The occupying Japanese in 1938 imposed the name Peking, then with their surrender in 1945, theNationalist Government restored "Peiping" by 1 September 1945. In 1949, the official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when theChinese Communist Party conquered it during theChinese Civil War and made it capital of their newly foundedPeople's Republic of China. As noted above, thepinyin romanization, "Beijing", was adopted for use within the country in 1958, and for international use in 1979. TheUnited States government continued to follow theRepublic of China government in using "Peiping" until the late 1960s.[20]
InChinese, the abbreviation of Beijing is its second character京 ("Capital"). This is employed, for example, as the prefix on all Beijing-issuedlicense plates.
In theLatin alphabet, the official abbreviation are the two initials of the region's characters:BJ.[24]
The Nanjing of the Northern Song was located atShangqiu inHenan.[26] The Jurchen Jin located theirs atKaifeng,[27]) which had been the Northern Song's "Dongjing".[26] The Jurchen Jin also had a Dongjing ("Eastern Capital"), which was, however, located atLiaoyang inLiaoning.[27] Apart from these, there were twoXijings (西京, "Western Capital"): one was the "Western Capital" of theNorthern Song dynasty, located atLuoyang;[26] the other was held by theLiao[28] and Jurchen Jin[27] atDatong. Liaoyang was the Zhongjing (中京, "Central Capital") of the Liao dynasty[28] and, finally, another Zhongdu ("Central Capital") was planned but never completed. It was the proposed capital of theMing dynasty mooted by theHongwu Emperor in the 14th century, to be located on the site of his destroyed childhood village of Zhongli (鍾離), nowFengyang inAnhui.[29]
^During theQin dynasty, the City of Ji served as the regional capital of the Guangyang Commandery (广阳郡).[8][9]
^During theEastern Han dynasty, Youzhou, as one of 12 prefectures, contained a dozen subordinate commanderies, including the Guangyang Commandery. In 24 AD,Liu Xiu moved Youzhou's prefectural seat from Ji County (in modern-day Tianjin) to the City of Ji (in modern-day Beijing). In 96 AD, the City of Ji served as the seat of both the Guangyang Commandery and Youzhou.[10] TheWei Kingdom reorganized and decentralized the governance of commanderies under Youzhou. Guangyang Commandery became the State of Yan (燕国), which had four counties: Ji County, Changping, Jundu and Guangyang County, and was governed from the City of Ji. Fanyang Commandery was governed from Zhuo County. Yuyang Commandery was governed from Yuyuang (in modern-dayHuairou District of Beijing),Shanggu Commandery was governed from Juyong (in modern-dayYanqing County of Beijing).[11]
^During theSui dynasty, Youzhou became Zhuojun or Zhuo Commandery.[15]
^During theTang dynasty, the seat of the government of Youzhou remained in place but took on slightly different names. In 616, the government was called Youzhou Zongguanfu (幽州总管府); in 622, Youzhou Dazongguanfu (幽州大总管府); in 624, Youzhou Dadudufu (幽州大都督府) and in 626, Youzhou Dudufu (幽州都督府). From 710, the head of the government in Youzhou became ajiedushi, a military regional commander. In 742, Youzhou was renamed Fanyang Commandery (范阳郡). In 759, during theAn-Shi Rebellion,Shi Siming declared himself emperor of theGreat Yan dynasty and made Fanyang, Yanjing or "the Yan Capital." After the rebellion was suppressed, the seat of government became Youzhou Lulong Dudufu (幽州卢龙都督府).[16]
^The seat of government in Nanjing was known as Youdufu (幽都府) until 1012, when the name was changed to Xijinfu (析津府).
^After 1151, the capital of the Jin dynasty from Shangjing to Yanjing, which was renamed Zhongdu. Zhongdu refers to the Zhongdulu (中都路), an administrative unit which governed about 12 surrounding prefectures and 39 counties. The governing seat of Zhongdulu was Daxingfu (大兴府).[17]
^The seat of government in Beiping, later Beijing, was called Shuntianfu (顺天府).
^From 1938 to 1940 the city was renamed Peking by theProvisional Government of the Republic of China, a puppet regime backed by the Japanese occupation. From 1940 to 1945, It was controlled by theWang Jingwei regime, which is also a Japanese puppet regime. Japan surrendered in 1945. The city's name reverted to Peiping after After theNational Army's liberation.
^Xavier, Francis, Letter to Didaco Perriera, 12 Nov 1552.Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scriptaArchived 2022-04-09 at theWayback Machine, vol. 2. Xavier gives the name as "Paquim." For another early usage, see Gaspar da Cruz,Tractado em que se co[m]tam muito por este[n]so as cousas da China, co[n] suas particularidades, [e] assi do reyno dormuz, 1569.
^Raleigh, Sir Walter, and Robert O. Dougan, (1596)The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, Volumes 1-3, p. 50.
^Martini, Martino,De bello Tartarico historia, 1654. Martini, Martino (1655),Novus Atlas Sinensis, "Prima Provencia Peking Sive Pecheli," p. 17.
^Denis Twitchett, Herbert Franke, John K. Fairbank, inThe Cambridge History of China: Volume 6, Alien Regimes and Border States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p 454.
^『北京档案史料』. 2001. p. 304.Archived from the original on 2023-04-08. Retrieved2020-10-03.1918年1月，北洋政府正式定名北京为京都市。
^「近代城市史研究資料彙編 」. 北平市工務局 [Beiping City Public Works Bureau]. 1947.OCLC320850375. Quoted in王伟杰 [Wang Weijie] (1989).「北京环境史话」. 地質出版社 [Dizhi Chubanshe].ISBN9787116003682.OCLC24027432.Archived from the original on 2023-04-08. Retrieved2020-08-17.它说: "民国三年六月，设督办京都市政公所"，"民国七年一月（1918年1月），正式定名「京都市」"，"民国十七年六月月，北平特别市政府成立"。
