Beijing is the immensely populated capital of the “People’s Republic of China”. This jam packed metropolis is home to an astonishing seventeen million people, yet it is only the second most populous city in China, after Shanghai. All the same, Beijing is China’s capital city as well as being considered the cultural, educational, and political center of the country. This helped the city to net the 2008 Summer Olympics to mixed results, but some applause must go to the Beijing for managing to host the competition while still maintaining order in one of the most populated cities in the history of Earth.
While countless Chinese will espouse the virtues of Beijing, the city is also widely acclaimed outside the communist superpower. Regardless of many people’s feelings about the city and the country’s pollution and animal rights records, the fact of the matter is that Beijing is one of the most culturally and historically significant cities ever to built. A walk around the Beijing of today will reveal some of the amazing art and architecture that have been a part of China for literally thousands of years! The thirteen story high Pagoda of Tianning Temple, for instance, is an incredibly impressive stone tower that was built almost a thousand years ago during the Liao Dynasty. Many dynasties came and went in Beijing until the entire country became a Communist nation in the late 1940s but the most famous and well known part of Beijing is almost definitely Tiananmen and Tiananmen Square, which is the site of the famous photograph of the unknown Chinese citizen boldly standing up to the country’s tank envoy. This wasn’t Tiananmen’s first brush with worldwide fame, though, and it won’t be the last to be sure. Rare is the city that commands such a modern day presence yet still manages to proudly boast its ancient relics for the entire world to see. Athens may be the closest competitor to Beijing in this respect but it is clear that the Athens of today pales in comparison to Beijing in terms of importance and strength.
Beijing has more recently come under fire not from competing dynasties or Mongolian invasion but from a much more sinister source: Pollution. Beijing was widely considered, along with Mexico City, as one of the most polluted cities in history. Because of China’s heavy industry, the air would from time to time envelop Beijing with massive amounts of smog that decreased the life expectancy of its citizens and lead to serious lung problems. Fortunately, the country has started a massive green campaign and, since winning the 2008 Olympic site, tens of billions of dollars have been implemented in order to clean up the city’s air on a massive scale. Laws are now enacted with the intent to reduce emissions from cars and factories and, if things continue this way, Beijing may once more become a beautiful city with clean air. Many people have a negative view of China in general and Beijing in particular because of their comparatively unclean food and hygiene practices, not to mention the government’s laws regarding multiple daughters. All the same, the beauty and massive historical significance of the city can’t be detracted and, whether we like it or not, Beijing is one of the most important places in the world today.
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