How Beijing Became the Capital: A Thousand Years of Shifting Thrones

From a frontier town on China’s northern edge to the political heart of an empire, Beijing’s journey tells a story of geography, power, and destiny.

1. Before the Capital — Ji and Youzhou

Long before Beijing became the center of emperors and parades, it was a border town watching the vast northern plains. In the early Zhou dynasty, the city was known as Ji (蓟)—a small vassal state guarding the frontier between the Central Plains and the nomadic tribes beyond the mountains. It stood at the edge of civilization, a sentinel city balancing fear and exchange.

By the Tang and Song dynasties, the city was called Youzhou (幽州). It had grown into a prosperous outpost, a hub of trade and military affairs connecting China’s agrarian south with the grasslands to the north. Still, it was not yet a capital—just a crucial node where different worlds met.

2. The Turning Point — From Liao to Jin

The turning point came when northern empires rose from the steppe. In 938 CE, the Liao dynasty, founded by the Khitan people, captured this region and renamed it Nanjing (the Southern Capital), also known as Yanjing (燕京). It became one of Liao’s five capitals—a southern foothold for a northern power.

When the Jin dynasty, established by the Jurchens, destroyed the Liao in the 12th century, they pushed their frontier southward. What had once been a border now lay near the empire’s center. With fertile plains, convenient river routes, and strategic proximity to the heartland, Yanjing was the natural choice for a new capital.

In 1153, Emperor Hailingwang officially moved the Jin capital here, renaming the city Zhongdu (中都)—the Central Capital. He expanded the old Liao city on a grand scale, inspired by the layout of the Northern Song capital, Kaifeng. Zhongdu had a palace city, an imperial city, and outer city walls with grand gates facing the four directions. For the first time, Beijing wasn’t merely a stronghold—it was the stage on which emperors ruled.

3. The Imperial Pattern — Yuan, Ming, and Qing

Zhongdu was later destroyed during the Mongol conquest, but its ashes gave rise to something even greater. In 1267, Kublai Khan ordered the construction of Dadu (大都)—the Great Capital of the Yuan dynasty—slightly northeast of the old Jin city. This new capital was a marvel of urban planning: wide avenues, rectangular symmetry, and a grand central axis that still defines Beijing’s geography today.

When the Ming dynasty replaced the Yuan, the early emperors ruled from Nanjing, but in 1421, the Yongle Emperor officially moved the capital north to Beijing. The Forbidden City was completed, the Temple of Heaven erected, and the city walls expanded. From then on, Beijing became the permanent seat of power—a capital not by chance, but by design.

The Qing dynasty later inherited and refined this system. By then, the pattern was unshakable: a city structured around cosmic order and imperial authority, with the emperor at the very center of the world’s largest empire.

4. A City That Never Stopped Being a Capital

Why did Beijing remain the capital while dynasties rose and fell? The answer lies in both geography and psychology. Beijing sits in a basin protected by the Yan Mountains to the north and open to the North China Plain to the south. It commands the routes to the sea and the passes to the steppe. Whoever controlled Beijing controlled both defense and communication between China’s north and south.

But beyond strategy, there was something deeper. As a city built by conquerors from the frontier yet embraced by the heartland, Beijing learned to be both proud and tolerant, formal yet relaxed. It absorbed different peoples, cuisines, and ideas—and turned them into something uniquely its own.

5. Today’s Echoes

Walk along Beijing’s central axis today—from the Drum Tower through the Forbidden City to Yongding Gate—and you are retracing eight centuries of ambition. Beneath the glass towers and traffic loops, the ancient geometry still hums quietly. It’s the same layout that once guided emperors’ processions and ritual sacrifices, the same pattern that whispered the dream of eternity.

Beijing has changed faces countless times, but its soul—the soul of a capital built on endurance—remains unmistakably the same.