Unit 21 World-famous Cities

Beijing, the capital of People's Republic of China is the country's political, economic and cultural center.

The city's long history dates back to very early times. During the Warring States period, between 475 and 211 BC, it was the capital of the state of Yan. Form the 12th century onward, Beijing was the capital of the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing feudal dynasties. The last dynasty,the Qing was overthrown during the revolution of 1911.

In the early 1920's Beijing became the cradle of china's new demorctatic revolutin, the May Fourth Movement, a massive students movement against empirelism and feudalism began here in 1919. This movement eventually lead to the founding of the chinese comunist party in 1921. It was in Beijing on october 1st 1949 that chairman Mao Zedong procliam to the world the founding the People's Republic of China.

Geographically beijing is located in the northern part of the north China plain, surronded by mountains on the north, east and west. The city covers an area of 16,800 square kilometers or 6,486 square miles. The annual tempreature averages 65 ℉ or 11.9℃, the annual rainfall averages 24 inches or 696 milimeters.

Beijing has a population of more than 15 million, over 9 million living in the urban area and over 6 million on the outskirts. The city of beijing consists of 4 urban districts, 6 suburban districts and 9 outline conties.

Before 1949 Beijing was a consumer city, rely on daily necessitis brought in from tianjing, Shanghai, guangzhou and even from abroad. Now it has developed into one of the contry's leading manufacturing centers.

In the 1940's public transportation in Beijing was provided by 49 street cars and 5 buses, covering only 25.6 miles or 41 kilometers. By 1980 Beijing had more than 3,000 veicles for public transport, servicing roots(roads?) totally 940 meters(miles?) or 1,500 kilometers. Beijing's first subway line came to operation in 1969, running 15 miles or 24 kilometers from east to west. A second line, which runs directy under the old city wall, is also open to traffic. Then there are taxis whose number had grown to 50,000 by 1992. However, many people still prefer the bycicle, which is a very important means of tranportation in Beijing, there are over 8 million bycicles in the city.

As the culture centre of the country, Beijing has more than 50 institutions of higher learning, not to mention the many national research institutes and art and science acedemies established in the capital.