Beijing Central Axis stretches 7.8 kilometers from the Bell and Drum Towers in the north to Yongding Gate in the south, running through the heart of the city. On July 27, 2024, it was officially inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, becoming China’s 59th World Heritage Site. It is…

If you’re visiting Beijing for the first time, standing on the vast Tiananmen Square, you’ll immediately spot the Tiananmen Gate Tower with its red walls and yellow tiles to the north. Many first-time visitors to China tend to confuse three locations: Tiananmen Square is a massive public square; the Tiananmen…

If you can only visit one museum during your trip to Beijing, the National Museum of China is definitely worth adding to your itinerary. Located on the east side of Tiananmen Square, across from the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China is one of the world’s…

Just east of the Forbidden City, separated by a red wall, lies an imperial hall even wider than the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City—the Imperial Ancestral Temple. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, this was where emperors paid homage to their ancestors. “Being enshrined in the Imperial…

Walking north from Tiananmen Square and passing through the archway, you’ll see a gate tower that looks almost exactly like Tiananmen Gate. The vast majority of tourists walk straight through Duanmen without even looking up, heading straight for Wumen Gate and the Forbidden City. But what they don’t realize is…

Nine out of ten visitors to Tiananmen Square will cross one of these seven white marble bridges. But many people don’t know that the bridge beneath their feet has an official name—Outer Jinshui Bridge (Wài Jīnshuǐ Qiáo). It spans the Outer Jinshui River in front of Tiananmen Gate and marks…

Old Beijingers refer to Zhengyangmen as “Qianmen Tower.” During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it served as the “national gate” reserved exclusively for the emperor—you can think of it as Beijing’s Arc de Triomphe, though it predates the one in Paris by more than 400 years and held a higher…

Where does Beijing’s Central Axis begin? It’s not Tiananmen Square, nor is it the Forbidden City—it’s this city gate tower that you may have only glimpsed from a car window: Yongding Gate (Yongdingmen). Since its construction in 1553, it has weathered more than 470 years of history—though for 47 of…

Last Updated: Sep. 2026 If you’re fascinated by the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber or wish to admire an exquisite Chinese garden, Beijing’sGrand View Garden is an excellent choice. This park was specially constructed for filming the 1987 television adaptation of Dream of the Red Chamber, bringing…