"Beijing" is the atonal pinyin romanisation of the Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese characters 北京, the Chinese name of the capital of the People's Republic of China.
The spelling Beijing was adopted for use within China upon the approval of Hanyu Pinyin on February 11, 1958, during the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress. It became obligatory for all foreign publications issued by the People's Republic on 1 January 1979. It was gradually adopted by various news organizations, governments, and international agencies over the next decade.
The Chinese characters 北 ("north") and 京 ("capital") together mean the "Northern Capital". The name was first used during the reign of the Ming dynasty's Yongle Emperor, who made his northern fief a second capital along with Nanjing (南京, the "Southern Capital") in 1403 after successfully dethroning his nephew during the Jingnan Campaign. The name was restored in 1949 at the founding of the People's Republic of China.
"Peking" is a spelling created by French missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries. In De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (1615), Matteo Ricci calls the city Pechinum. (The English translation gives Pequin.) "Peking" appears in A Description of the Empire of China (1735) by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde. These early spellings may represent pronunciation in the Nanjing dialect, which was used as a lingua franca at this time, or the various other southern Chinese languages (e.g., Cantonese, Hokkien and Hakka) used by the traders of the port cities visited by early European traders. Peking was the English name of the city until the adoption of pinyin. However, it is still employed adjectivally in terms such as "Pekingese", "Peking duck", "Peking Man" and various others. The name remains in common and official use in many other languages.
The city has held many other names. The chronological list below sets out both the names of the city itself, and, in earlier times, the names of the administrative entities within the city today.
Ji and Jicheng: The first major known settlement was the eponymous capital of the ancient Ji state between the 11th and 7th centuries BC. The settlement was also known as Jicheng. It was located in the current city's Guang'anmen neighborhood south of the Beijing West Railway Station. Located 20 miles south of the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing city.
Ji: simplified Chinese: 蓟; traditional Chinese: 薊; pinyin: Jì; Wade–Giles: Chi
Jicheng: Chinese: 薊城; pinyin: Jìchéng; Wade–Giles: Chi-cheng; literally: "Ji City"
Yan and Yanjing: Ji was conquered by Yan around the 7th century BC but was employed as its conqueror's new capital and therefore also known as Yan and Yanjing. The name was employed in the titles of An Lushan (as Emperor of Yan), Liu Rengong (as King of Yan), and the Princes of Yan. The Khitans of the 10th- to 12th-century Liao Dynasty fully restored the name Yanjing and it remains a common informal name for Beijing, as reflected in the locally brewed Yanjing Beer and the former Yenching University (since merged into Peking University).
Yan: Chinese: 燕; pinyin: Yān; Wade–Giles: Yen
Yanjing: Chinese: 燕京; pinyin: Yānjīng
Guangyang: After the Qin conquest, Ji was made the capital of the Guangyang Commandery.
simplified Chinese: 广阳郡; traditional Chinese: 廣陽郡; pinyin: Guǎngyángjùn; Wade–Giles: Kuang-yang Chün
Fanyang and Yuyang: During the Han Dynasty, the commandery was renamed Yuyang and the city itself renamed Fanyang.
Yuyang: simplified Chinese: 渔阳郡; traditional Chinese: 漁陽郡; pinyin: Yúyángjùn; Wade–Giles: Yü-yang Chün
Fanyang: simplified Chinese: 范阳; traditional Chinese: 范陽; pinyin: Fànyáng; Wade–Giles: Fan-yang
Jixian: From the 1st century BC until at least the AD 4th-century Western Jin dynasty, Jixian served as the capital of Youzhou province.
simplified Chinese: 蓟县; traditional Chinese: 薊縣; pinyin: Jìxiàn; Wade–Giles: Chi-hsien
Youzhou: Under the Tang Dynasty, the city generally employed Youzhou as its name. During the Tianbao Era of Emperor Xuanzong, however, the name Fanyang was restored as its own commandery.
Chinese: 幽州; pinyin: Yōuzhōu; Wade–Giles: Yu-chou
Nanjing: In the 10th and 12th centuries, the northerly Liao Dynasty restored the name Yanjing. They also (ironically) knew the city as Nanjing as it was the southernmost of their secondary capitals.
Chinese: 南京; pinyin: Nánjīng; Wade–Giles: Nan-ching
Zhongdu: During the 12th-century Later Jin dynasty, it was known as Zhongdu.
Chinese: 中都; pinyin: Zhōngdū; literally: "Central Capital"
Khanbaliq: The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty originally restored the name Yanjing before constructing a new capital adjacent to the former settlement. This settlement was called Dadu in Chinese and Daidu in Mongolian. (As Khanbaliq, it was noted as Cambuluc by Marco Polo.) This city gradually absorbed the former settlements around the area.
Chinese: 大都; pinyin: Dàdū; literally: "Great Capital"
Beiping: Under the Ming Dynasty, the city itself was initially known as Beiping. The name reads literally as "Northern Peace", although its usage and connotations are closer to the idea of "Northern Plains".
Chinese: 北平; pinyin: Běipíng; Wade–Giles: Pei-p'ing; literally: "Northern Peace"
Shuntian and Beizhili: When the usurping Yongle Emperor established his base of Beiping as a secondary capital in 1403, he renamed the town Shuntian and the province-level region surrounding it Beizhili to mimic the names of Yingtian (modern Nanjing) and the province of Zhili that surrounds it.Shuntian: simplified Chinese: 顺天; traditional Chinese: 順天; pinyin: Shùntiān; Wade–Giles: Shün-t'ien; literally: "Obedient to Heaven"
Beizhili: simplified Chinese: 北直隶; traditional Chinese: 北直隸; pinyin: Běizhílì; Wade–Giles: Pei-chih-li
Jingshi and Beijing: When the palace was finally completed in 1420, the Yongle 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 as Nanjing while Beijing was used to describe the area directly administered by the capital (generally modern Hebei).Jingshi: simplified Chinese: 京师; traditional Chinese: 京師; pinyin: Jīngshī; Wade–Giles: Ching-shih; literally: "Capital"
Beiping, in both its connotations, was restored as the name in 1928 by the Republic of China following its reconquest of Beijing from the warlords during the Northern Expedition. The occupying Japanese in 1937 imposed the name Peking (Beijing), then with their surrender in 1945, the Nationalist Government restored "Beiping". In 1949, the official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when the Communists conquered the capital during the Chinese Civil War and founded the People's Republic of China. As noted above, the pinyin romanization, "Beijing", was adopted for use within the country in 1958, and for international
In Chinese, the abbreviation of Beijing is its second character 京 ("Capital"). This is employed, for example, as the prefix on all Beijing-issued licence plates.
In the Latin alphabet, the official abbreviation are the two initials of the region's characters: BJ.
Beijing Capital International Airport's IATA code is PEK, based on the former spelling Peking.
In addition to Nanjing, several other East Asian cities have similar names in Chinese characters despite appearing dissimilar in English transliteration. The most prominent is Tokyo, Japan, whose Han script name is written 東京 or "Eastern Capital". 東京 was also a former name of Hanoi (as Đông Kinh or "Tonkin") in Vietnam during the Later Lê Dynasty. A former name of Seoul in South Korea was Gyeongseong, written in Han script as 京城 or "Capital City". Kyoto in Japan still bears the similar-meaning characters 京都: the character "都", du in Chinese, can also mean "capital".
The history of China since the Tang dynasty has also been full of secondary capitals with directional names. Under the Tang, these were Beidu ("north capital", at Taiyuan in Shanxi); Nandu ("south capital", first, Chengdu in Sichuan and, later, Jiangling in Hubei); Dongdu ("east capital", Luoyang in Henan); and Xidu ("west capital", Fengxiang in Shaanxi).
There were two previous Beijings: one, the northern capital of the Northern Song at modern Daming in Hebei; the other, the northern capital of the Jurchen Jin located at Ningcheng in Inner Mongolia.
The Nanjing of the Northern Song was located at Shangqiu in Henan. The Jurchen Jin located theirs at Kaifeng,) which had been the Northern Song's "Dongjing". The Jurchen Jin also had a Dongjing ("Eastern Capital"), which was, however, located at Liaoyang in Liaoning. Apart from these, there were two Xijings (西京, "Western Capital"): one was the "Western Capital" of the Northern Song dynasty, located at Luoyang; the other was held by the Liao and Jurchen Jin at Datong. Liaoyang was the Zhongjing (中京, "Central Capital") of the Liao dynasty and, finally, another Zhongdu ("Central Capital") was planned but never completed. It was the proposed capital of the Ming Dynasty mooted by the Hongwu Emperor in the 14th century, to be located on the site of his destroyed childhood village of Zhongli (鍾離), now Fengyang in Anhui.
