- published: 10 Jan 2013
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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.