What does the name Beijing mean?
309029#0
Beiping or Peiping (), meaning "Northern Peace" in Chinese, is a former name of Beijing, which means "Northern Capital". The city was called Beiping from 1368 to 1403 and from 1928 to 1949, when the Chinese capital was at Nanjing, or "Southern Capital". In 1403 and again in 1949, the city's name was changed from Beiping to Beijing or "Northern Capital." From 1937 to 1945, the city under Japanese occupation served as the capital of a puppet regime and was renamed Beijing but most Chinese histories use the name Beiping for the city during that time period.
Beiping
18603746#5
Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had numerous other names. The name Beijing, which means "Northern Capital" (from the Chinese characters for "north" and for "capital"), was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing (the "Southern Capital"). The English spelling is based on the pinyin romanization of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. An older English spelling, Peking, is the postal romanization of the same two characters as they are pronounced in Chinese dialects spoken in the southern port towns first visited by European traders and missionaries. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of as "kjaeng", prior to a phonetic shift in the northern dialects to the modern pronunciation. Although Peking is no longer the common name for the city, some of the city's older locations and facilities, such as Beijing Capital International Airport, with IATA Code PEK, and Peking University, still use the former romanization.
Beijing
34423576#2
The Chinese characters ("north") and ("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 (, 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.
Names of Beijing
18603746#41
Beijing's 16 county-level divisions (districts) are further subdivided into 273 lower third-level administrative units at the township level: 119 towns, 24 townships, 5 ethnic townships and 125 subdistricts.
Towns within Beijing Municipality but outside the urban area include (but are not limited to):Several place names in Beijing end with "mén" (), meaning "gate", as they were the locations of gates in the former Beijing city wall. Other place names end in "cūn" (), meaning "village", as they were originally villages outside the city wall.
Beijing
41607440#0
Nanjing was the name for modern Beijing during the Liao dynasty, when Khitan rulers made the city the southern capital. To distinguish "Nanjing", which literally means "Southern Capital" in Chinese, from modern Nanjing in Jiangsu Province and Beijing Damingfu, the Northern Song Dynasty name for modern Daming County in Hebei Province, Chinese historians sometimes refer to Beijing during the Liao dynasty as Liao Nanjing (). The Khitan rulers of the Liao acquired the city, then known as Youzhou, in the cession of the Sixteen Prefectures in 938 from the Later Jìn, one of the five shortlived dynasties that ruled northern China following the end of the Tang Dynasty. The city was officially renamed Nanjing, Youdu Fu (南京幽都府). In 1012, the city was renamed Nanjing, Xijin Fu (南京析津府). The city was also colloquially referred to at the time as Yanjing. In 1122, the city was captured by the Jurchen Jin dynasty and was officially renamed Yanjing, ending the use of Nanjing for what is today modern Beijing.
Nanjing (Liao dynasty)
327224#1
The name "Zhili" means "directly ruled" and indicates regions directly ruled by the imperial government of China. Zhili province was first constituted during the Ming Dynasty when the capital of China was located at Nanjing along the Yangtze River. In 1403, the Ming Yongle Emperor relocated the capital to Beiping, which was subsequently renamed Beijing. The region known as North Zhili was composed of parts of the modern provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shandong, including the provincial-level municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin. There was another region located around the "reserve capital" Nanjing known as South Zhili that included parts of what are today the provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui, including the provincial-level municipality of Shanghai.
Zhili
20217977#0
Peking Pork () is a meat dish that is a mistranslation. The name in Chinese means "Capital Rib," a name that is more common in Taiwan and overseas than in Mainland China itself. Its reference to Beijing, China is a misnomer. The dish actually refers to sweet and sour style of rib, which originated from Wuxi as Wuxi Fried Spare Ribs and then popularized overseas through Cantonese restaurants. The capital refers to the Nanjing capital, an area where sweet and sour cooking originated in China. This dish consists of crisp pork ribs that are marinated in a sweet red sauce. The pork should be firm and crisp, with a slightly sweet glaze that does not overwhelm the tenderness of the pork. Found in many Chinese and dim sum restaurants in Chinatown, this rare dish is not common in many Chinese restaurants elsewhere.
Peking pork
691488#1
The origin of the name of the town has caused some debate and although the folk etymology is that Buckie is named after a seashell (genus "buccinum") the reality is that the shared marine background is merely a coincidence. The name Buckie would originally have occurred in identifying a place that was not immediately adjacent to the sea so we must seek alternative etymological sources. Unfortunately, in one of the earlier books on Scottish place names, Buckie on the Moray Firth does not receive a mention although Buckie, spelt the same way, in the Balquhidder district of Perthshire is described as being derived from the Gaelic word "boc" or Welsh "bowk", both meaning a buck or male deer, so this would suggest the meaning of Buckie as "place where male deer gather" and this specifically would most likely have been the valley of what is known today as the Buckie Burn.
Buckie
6695583#1
In the Yuan dynasty, Beijing was known as Dadu, and the Imperial City formed the centre of the city. In 1368, the Ming armies conquered Dadu, and changed its name to "Beiping" (the two characters meaning "north" and "peace" or "pacified"), with the capital moved to Nanjing. Because the Imperial City was untouched by battle, most of the Imperial City survived the war; however, in 1369, the Hongwu Emperor ordered that the Imperial City be demolished.
Imperial City, Beijing
960884#1
The emblem draws on various elements of Chinese culture, depicting a traditional red Chinese seal above the words "Beijing 2008" and the Olympic rings. The seal is inscribed with a stylised calligraphic rendition of the Chinese character 京 ("jīng", meaning 'capital', from the name of the host city) in the form of a dancing figure. The curves are also claimed to suggest the body of a wriggling Chinese dragon. The open arms of the figure symbolise the invitation of China to the world to share in its culture. The figure also resembles that of a runner crossing the finish line. Red, the dominant colour of the emblem, is an important colour in Chinese society, often signifying prosperity.
Dancing Beijing