There are many landmarks in Beijing. The best-known ones include the Badaling stretch of the Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, the Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City, a number of temples, hutongs and parks, relics of ages gone by.

Beijing ( /beɪˈdʒɪŋ/; Chinese: 北京; pinyin: Běijīng, [peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]), formerly romanized as Peking ( /piːˈkɪŋ/ or /peɪˈkɪŋ/), is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The metropolis, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government, with 14 urban and suburban districts and two rural counties. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast.

Beijing is China's second largest city by urban population after Shanghai and is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's largest state-owned companies. Beijing is a major transportation hub in the national highway, expressway, railway and high-speed rail network. Beijing's Capital International Airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic.

Beijing, as the capital and a municipality of the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a transport hub, with a sophisticated network of roads, railways and a major airport. Five completed ring roads encircle a city with nine expressways heading in virtually all compass directions, supplemented by eleven China National Highways.

Transport in the capital is overseen by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport.

The city is served by five completed ring roads. From the centre of the city outward, they are:

Nine toll expressways link Beijing to its suburbs, outlying regions, and other cities; these are:

Eleven China National Highway routes depart from Beijing in virtually all compass directions:

Beijing as of 2011 has an estimated 5 million registered cars on its roads, so traffic congestion is widespread. Traffic in the city centre is often gridlocked and is only predicted to get worse as the number of vehicles on Beijing's roads increase. It is predicted by 2012 Beijing will have over 6 million cars on its roads. To combat congestion the local government has rapidly been building the subway system adding more lines and working towards doubling the length of the subway system by 2015. In addition to this they have decreased the cost of fares in an attempt to encourage more people to use public transport. In 2008 Beijing introduced restrictions on the amount of cars on its roads in attempt to reduce congestion and pollution during the Olympic games period. They did this by adopting odd-even traffic restriction on alternative days. Cars with number plates ending with odd numbers were restricted one day and the next day cars with number plates ending with even numbers were restricted. Drivers who were unable to use their cars did not have to pay road or vehicle taxes, costing the city around 1.3 billion yuan.

Beijing cuisine (Chinese: 京菜 or 北京菜; pinyin: jīngcài or běijīngcài) is a cooking style in Beijing, China. It is also known as Mandarin cuisine.

Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine has been influenced by culinary traditions from all over China, but the cuisine that has exerted the greatest influence on Beijing cuisine is the cuisine of the eastern coastal province of Shandong. Beijing cuisine has itself, in turn, also greatly influenced other Chinese cuisines, particularly the cuisine of Liaoning, the Chinese Imperial cuisine, and the Chinese aristocrat cuisine.

Another Chinese cuisine that influenced Beijing cuisine (as well as influenced by Beijing cuisine itself) was the Chinese Imperial cuisine that originated from "The Emperor's Kitchen" (御膳房; pinyin: yùshànfáng), which was a term referring to the cooking facilities inside of the Forbidden City, Beijing where thousands of cooks from the different parts of China showed their best cooking skills to please royal families and officials. Therefore, it is at times rather difficult to determine the actual origin of a dish as the term "Mandarin" is generalized and refers not only to Beijing, but other provinces as well. However, some generalization of Beijing cuisine can be characterized as follows: Foods that originated in Beijing are often snacks rather than full courses, and they are typically sold by little shops or street vendors. There is emphasis on dark soy paste, sesame paste, sesame oil, and scallions, and fermented tofu is often served as a condiment. In terms of cooking method, methods relating to the different ways of frying are often used. There is a lesser emphasis on rice as an accompaniment than in many other areas of China, as local rice production is limited by the relatively dry climate.