Names of Beijing

This article is about the name of the city Beijing that is currently the capital of the People's Republic of China. For other uses, see Beijing (disambiguation).

"Beijing" is from pinyin Běijīng, 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]

A 1584 map of China by Abraham Ortelius (based on a manuscript map by Luiz Jorge de Barbuda (Ludovicus Georgius), with Beijing marked as C[ivitas] Paquin (to the right which is north on the map)

Etymology

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

Portugal was the first European country to contact China in modern times. In Portuguese, the city is called Pequim. This name appeared in the letters of Francis Xavier in 1552.^[2] It transferred to English as "Pekin"^[3] and to French as Pékin.

Jesuit missionary Martino Martini used "Peking" in De bello Tartarico historia (The Tartary [Manchu] War) (1654) and Novus Atlas Sinensis (New Atlas of China) (1655).^[4] In 1665, Martini's work was reissued as part of Atlas Maior (great atlas), a much-praised atlas by Dutch publisher Joan 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 of pinyin. The New York Times adopted "Beijing" in November 1986.^[6] The Associated Press and United Press International, which provided most world news coverage in American media, jointly agreed to adopt the "Beijing" spelling beginning on 1 March 1987.^[7] Elsewhere in the Anglosphere, the BBC switched in 1990.^[8] "Peking" is still employed in terms such as "Pekingese", "Peking duck", "Peking Man" and various others, as well as being retained in the name of Peking University.

Historical names of Beijing

Historical Names of Beijing

Year	City Name	Dynasty	Notes
c. 1045 BC	City of Ji 薊城	Zhou, Warring States	[Note 1]
221 BC		Qin	[Note 2]
106 BC - 318 AD	City of Ji Youzhou 幽州	Han, Wei, Western Jin (晉)	[Note 3]
319		Later Zhao	[Note 4]
350		Eastern Jin (晉)	[Note 5]
352–57		Former Yan	[Note 6]
370		Former Qin	[Note 7]
385		Later Yan	[Note 8]
397		Northern Dynasties	[Note 9]
607	Zhuojun 涿郡	Sui	[Note 10]
616	Youzhou	Tang	[Note 11]
742	Fanyang 範陽
759	Yanjing 燕京
765	Youzhou
907		Later Liang
911		Yan (Five Dynasties)
913		Later Liang
923		Later Tang
936		Later Jin
938	Nanjing 南京	Liao	[Note 12]
1122		Northern Liao
Yanjing	Jin (金)
	1122
1123	Yanshan 燕山	Song
1125	Yanjing	Jin (金)
1151	Zhongdu 中都		[Note 13]
1215	Yanjing	Yuan
1271	Dadu 大都
1368	Beiping 北平	Ming	[Note 14]
1403	Shuntian 順天
1421
1644		Qing
1912		Republic of China
1914	Jingzhao 京兆地方
1928	Peiping
1937	Peking	Provisional Government (Japanese occupation)	[Note 15]
1940		Wang regime (Japanese occupation)
1945	Peiping	Republic of China
1949– present	Beijing	People's Republic of China
Capital of regional dynasty or kingdom   Capital of China

Entrance to the Beiping 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 the administrative entities covering the city today.

• Ji: 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.
  • Ji: simplified Chinese: 蓟; traditional Chinese: 薊; pinyin: Jì; Wade–Giles: Chi
  • Jicheng: Chinese: 薊城; pinyin: Jìchéng; Wade–Giles: Chi-cheng; lit. 'Ji Walled City'
  • Jixian: simplified Chinese: 蓟县; traditional Chinese: 薊縣; pinyin: Jìxiàn; Wade–Giles: Chi-hsien; lit. 'Ji County'
• Yan: Ji was conquered by Yan 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 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 name for Beijing in literary usage today, 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
• Youzhou and Fanyang: Under the Tang dynasty, being the seat of the You Prefecture, the city generally employed Youzhou as its name. During the Tianbao Era of Emperor Xuanzong, however, You Prefecture was renamed Fanyang Commandery, and the name Fanyang became associated with the city as well.
  • Chinese: 幽州; pinyin: Yōuzhōu; Wade–Giles: Yu-chou
  • simplified Chinese: 范阳; traditional Chinese: 范陽; pinyin: Fànyáng; Wade–Giles: Fan-yang
• Nanjing: In the 10th and 12th centuries, the northerly Liao dynasty restored the name Yanjing. They also 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; lit. '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^[19] in Chinese and Daidu in Mongolian.^[20] (As Khanbaliq, it was noted as Cambuluc^[21] by Marco Polo.) This city gradually absorbed the former settlements around the area.
  • Chinese: 大都; pinyin: Dàdū; lit. 'Great Capital'
• Beiping: Under the Ming 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]}
  • Chinese: 北平; pinyin: Běipíng; Wade–Giles: Pei-p'ing; lit. 'Northern Peace'
• Shuntian: When the usurping Yongle Emperor established his base of Beiping as a secondary capital in 1403, he renamed the town Shuntian and the province surrounding it Beizhili to mimic the names of Yingtian (modern Nanjing) and the province of Zhili that surrounds it.^[22]
  • Shuntian: simplified Chinese: 顺天; traditional Chinese: 順天; pinyin: Shùntiān; Wade–Giles: Shün-t'ien; lit. 'Obedient to Heaven'
• 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).^[22]
  • Jingshi: simplified Chinese: 京师; traditional Chinese: 京師; pinyin: Jīngshī; Wade–Giles: Ching-shih; lit. 'Capital'
• Jingdu: Chinese: 京都; pinyin: Jīngdū; Wade–Giles: Ching-tu; lit. 'Capital City') was declared the official name of Beijing by the Beiyang government in January 1918, and remained so until 1928.^[23][24]
• Beiping (then romanized as Peiping), in both its connotations, was restored as the name in 1928 by the Republic of China following its reconquest of Peking from the warlords during the Northern Expedition.^[21] The occupying Japanese in 1938 imposed the name Peking, then with their surrender in 1945, the Nationalist Government restored "Peiping" by 1 September 1945. In 1949, the official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when the Chinese Communist Party conquered it during the Chinese Civil War and made it capital of their newly founded People's Republic of China. As noted above, the pinyin romanization, "Beijing", was adopted for use within the country in 1958, and for international use in 1979. The United States government continued to follow the Republic of China government in using "Peiping" until the late 1960s.^[21]
  • Chinese: 北平; pinyin: Běipíng

Abbreviation

In Chinese, the abbreviation of Beijing is its second character 京 ("Capital"). This is employed, for example, as the prefix on all Beijing-issued license plates.

In the Latin alphabet, the official abbreviation are the two initials of the region's characters: BJ.^[25]

Beijing Capital International Airport's IATA code is PEK, based on the previous romanization, Peking. The new airport, Beijing Daxing International Airport, uses PKX as its code.

Similarly named cities

In addition to Nanjing, several other East Asian and Southeast 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 (Dongjing, 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).^[26]

There were two previous Beijings: one, the northern capital of the Northern Song at modern Daming in Hebei;^[27] the other, the northern capital of the Jurchen Jin located at Ningcheng in Inner Mongolia.^[28]

The Nanjing of the Northern Song was located at Shangqiu in Henan.^[27] The Jurchen Jin located theirs at Kaifeng,^[28]) which had been the Northern Song's "Dongjing".^[27] The Jurchen Jin also had a Dongjing ("Eastern Capital"), which was, however, located at Liaoyang in Liaoning.^[28] Apart from these, there were two Xijings (西京, "Western Capital"): one was the "Western Capital" of the Northern Song dynasty, located at Luoyang;^[27] the other was held by the Liao^[29] and Jurchen Jin^[28] at Datong. Liaoyang was the Zhongjing (中京, "Central Capital") of the Liao dynasty^[29] 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.^[30]

Notes

1. The City of Ji was the capital of the States of Ji and Yan.
2. During the Qin dynasty, the City of Ji served as the regional capital of the Guangyang Commandery (广阳郡).^[9][10]
3. During the Eastern 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.^[11] The Wei 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-day Huairou District of Beijing), Shanggu Commandery was governed from Juyong (in modern-day Yanqing County of Beijing).^[12]
4. In 319, Shi Le captured Youzhou from Duan Pidi
5. In 350, Murong Jun captured Youzhou in the name of restoring northern China to Jin rule.
6. From 352 to 357, the Former Yan made the city of Ji its capital.^[13]
7. In 319, Shi Le captured Youzhou from Duan Pidi
8. In the second lunar month of 385, Murong Chui seized Youzhou from Former Qin.^[14]
9. In 397 AD, the Northern Wei captured Ji from the Later Yan and went on to establish the first of the Northern Dynasties.^[15]
10. During the Sui dynasty, Youzhou became Zhuojun or Zhuo Commandery.^[16]
11. During the Tang 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 a jiedushi, a military regional commander. In 742, Youzhou was renamed Fanyang Commandery (范阳郡). In 759, during the An-Shi Rebellion, Shi Siming declared himself emperor of the Great 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).^[17]
12. 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).
13. 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).^[18]
14. The seat of government in Beiping, later Beijing, was called Shuntianfu (顺天府).
15. From 1938 to 1940 the city was renamed Peking by the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, a puppet regime backed by the Japanese occupation. From 1940 to 1945, It was controlled by the Wang Jingwei regime, which is also a Japanese puppet regime. Japan surrendered in 1945. The city's name reverted to Peiping after After the National Army's liberation.