Geography of Beijing
Geographically, Beijing is located at the northern tip of the North China Plain, near the meeting point of the Xishan and Yanshan mountain ranges. The city itself lies on flat land (elevation 20-60m, 65-197 ft.) that opens to the east and south. The much larger Beijing Municipality encompasses mountains that surround the city from the southwest to the northeast and reach elevations of over 2,000 m (6,562 ft.).
Beijing Municipality
consists of eight city districts, eight suburban districts and
two rural counties. It covers a total area of 16,807.8 sq. km.
The terrain is roughly 38% flat and 62% mountainous.[1] The city
is 150 km inland from the Bohai Sea via Tianjin Municipality in
the southeast. Aside from Tianjin, Beijing is bordered on all
other sides by Hebei Province, including a piece wedged between
Beijing and Tianjin.
Beijing Municipality
comprises 18 administrative sub-divisions, county-level units
governed directly by the municipality (second-level divisions).
Of these, 16 are districts and 2 are counties. The urban and
suburban areas of the city are divided into eight (8) districts:
Dongcheng
District 东城区
Xicheng District
西城区
Chongwen District
崇文区
Xuanwu District
宣武区
Chaoyang District
朝阳区
Haidian District
海淀区
Fengtai District
丰台区
Shijingshan
District 石景山区
The following six
districts encompass the more distant suburbs and satellite towns,
constituting part of the metropolitan area:
Mentougou
District 门头沟区
Fangshan District
房山区
Tongzhou District
通州区
Shunyi District
顺义区
Changping
District 昌平区
Daxing District
大兴区
Huairou District
怀柔区
Pinggu District
平谷区
The other two districts
and the two counties located further out govern semirural and
rural areas:
Yanqing County
延庆县
Beijing economy
Beijing is amongst the
most developed cities in China with tertiary industry accounting
for 73.2% of its GDP, making it the first post industrial city in
mainland China.[64] Finance is one of the most important
industries of Beijing.[65] By the end of 2007, there are 751
financial organizations in Beijing that generated 128.6 billion
RMB revenue accounting for 11.6% of the total financial industry
revenue of the entire country. It is also accounts for 13.8% of
Beijing's GDP, the highest percentage of that of all Chinese
cities. [66]
In 2008, Beijing's
nominal GDP was 1.0488 trillion RMB (150 billion USD), a
year-on-year growth of 9% from the previous year. Its GDP per
capita was 63,029 RMB (9,075 USD), an increase of 5.2% from the
previous year. In 2008, Beijing's primary, secondary, and
tertiary industries were worth 11.28 billion RMB, 269.32 billion
RMB, and 768.2 billion RMB. Urban disposable income per capita
was 24,725 yuan, a real increase of 12.4% from the previous year.
Per capita pure income of rural residents was 10,747 RMB, a real
increase of 12.4%.[67] Per capita disposable income of the 20%
low-income residents increased 16.7%, 11.4 percentage points
higher than the growth rate of the 20% high-income residents. The
Engel's coefficient of Beijing's urban residents reached 31.8% in
2005 and that of the rural residents was 32.8%, declining 4.5
percentage points and 3.9 percentage points, respectively,
compared with 2000.
Beijing Transportation
With the growth of the city following economic reforms, Beijing has evolved as the most important transportation hub in the People's Republic of China, and within the larger East Asian region. Encircling the city are five ring roads, nine expressways and city express routes, eleven China National Highways, several railway routes, and an international airport.
People's
Republic
Mao Zedong proclaiming
the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949
A man stands before a
column of tanks which were sent to Tiananmen Square earlier to
suppress the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989On 31 January 1949,
during the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces entered Beiping
without a fight. On 1 October of the same year, the Communist
Party of China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, announced in
Tiananmen the creation of the People's Republic of China and
renamed the city back to Beijing.Just a few days earlier, the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference had decided
that Beijing would be the capital of the new
government.
Following the economic
reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the urban area of Beijing has expanded
greatly. Formerly within the confines of the 2nd Ring Road and
the 3rd Ring Road, the urban area of Beijing is now pushing at
the limits of the recently constructed 5th Ring Road and 6th Ring
Road, with many areas that were formerly farmland now developed
residential or commercial districts. According to a 2005
newspaper report, the size of the newly developed Beijing land
was one and a half times larger than the land of old Beijing
within the 2nd Ring Road.Wangfujing and Xidan have developed into
flourishing shopping districts,while Zhongguancun has become a
major centre of electronics in China. In recent years, the
expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some
problems of urbanization, such as heavy traffic, poor air
quality, the loss of historic neighbourhoods, and significant
influx of migrants from various regions of the country,
especially rural areas.
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