Beijing (北京 – běi jīng) is a city of superlatives. It’s without a doubt the most famous city in China. It also happens to be the world’s most populous capital city. It’s one of the country’s Four Great Ancient Capitals, and it has been the political, cultural, and educational center of China for much of the past millennium. Learn all about the ‘Jing through some of our best posts over the years.
Beijing is home to some of the most famous landmarks in all of China. Learn all about five of them (Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and Great Wall) in this post.
Take a video tour of the Forbidden City.
24 Hours in Beijing
You can do a lot with just one day in the Chinese capital. Watch the flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen, hang out in local parks, take a spin around the lakes, dig into some delicious cuisine, and get out to enjoy the city’s wild nightlife.
Scenic Kunming Lake and the Western Hills of Beijing.
That whirlwind 24-hour tour may be a bit too much for most. It’s better to dedicate at least three days to properly explore Beijing. This post shows you what to do and does so in Chinese, so it’s great practice for your reading and an excellent vocabulary builder.
No visit to Beijing would be complete without trying the city’s most famous dish – Beijing roast duck (北京烤鸭 – běi jīng kǎo yā). This post details how it’s prepared, cooked, and eaten, and includes lots of useful vocabulary.
There are so many amazing places to visit in Beijing that you could spend years exploring the city and not see it all. After living there for nearly five years, I did my best to condense the best the city has to offer into a Top 10 list.
Beijing is an absolutely massive city, which means it can be a bit tricky to navigate. This post will teach you all the Chinese vocabulary you need for getting around the capital. You can also see what it looks like in this short video:
Just because there’s a lot to do in the city doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get out once in a while. There are plenty of awesome day trips you can take outside of Beijing, and we detail five of them in this post.
Beijing Nightlife
Beijing Craft Beer Festival
One of the best things about Beijing is the city’s epic nightlife. From dive bars, to fancy cocktail lounges, to craft breweries, to crazy clubs, there’s something for everyone after dark.
Now that you’ve learned a lot about Beijing, try talking about the city in Chinese by answering these questions:
你去过北京吗?
nǐ qù guò běi jīng ma
Have you been to Beijing?
在北京你去过什么地方?
zài běi jīng nǐ qù guò shén me dì fāng
What places have you been to in Beijing?
你喜欢北京吗? 为什么?
nǐ xǐ huān běi jīng ma? wèi shén me
Do you like Beijing? Why?
Sasha is an English teacher, writer, photographer, and videographer from the great state of Michigan. Upon graduating from Michigan State University, he moved to China and spent 5+ years living, working, studying, and traveling there. He also studied Indonesian Language & Culture in Bali for a year. He and his wife run the travel blog Grateful Gypsies, and they're currently trying the digital nomad lifestyle across Latin America.
An excellent post, Sasha. However, when you state things like “It also happens to be the world’s most populous capital city” as facts, you should be careful and state which method of calculation you’re using, because while according to the ‘city proper’ calculation you’re right, according to the urban area method, Tokyo and four other capital cities are larger. Besides, we know that the Chinese calculations tend to overstretch boundaries and city proper in China includes territories that would be considered counties elsewhere. That’s how Shaoxiing, for example, has nearly 5 million inhabitants and border Ningbo, whereas there are quite many smaller cities along the quite long distance between them and Shaoxing proper has about half a million inhabitants. But size is always a matter of pride first and foremost for any city, university, school, institution, factory, you name it – size takes precedent above everything for those megalomaniacs. Not very often justified …
Comments:
Peter Simon:
An excellent post, Sasha. However, when you state things like “It also happens to be the world’s most populous capital city” as facts, you should be careful and state which method of calculation you’re using, because while according to the ‘city proper’ calculation you’re right, according to the urban area method, Tokyo and four other capital cities are larger. Besides, we know that the Chinese calculations tend to overstretch boundaries and city proper in China includes territories that would be considered counties elsewhere. That’s how Shaoxiing, for example, has nearly 5 million inhabitants and border Ningbo, whereas there are quite many smaller cities along the quite long distance between them and Shaoxing proper has about half a million inhabitants. But size is always a matter of pride first and foremost for any city, university, school, institution, factory, you name it – size takes precedent above everything for those megalomaniacs. Not very often justified …