The Great Wall , the longest military defence work in the ancient time , is a symbol of China 's ancient civilization . It was built to protect China 's northern border in the 3rd century BC. During the Warring States period (403-221 bc ), before China was unified, feudal seven states of Qi, Chu , Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin built their own city walls from each other. At last, the king of the Qin conquered the other six states and unified China in 221 bc and ordered his military commander, Meng Tian to link up the city walls of three kingdoms of Qi, Yan and Zhao down the northern frontier. China 's first Great Wall was completed. Its length was about 5,000 kilometers from Bo Hai bay in the east to Gansu Province in the west.

Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644) suffered from military defeat by the Mongols . So, they decided to keep the Mongols out by constructing a 6,000 kilometer long wall along China 's northern border.

In 1987 it was listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)..

The Great Wall is visited often near Beijing at sites called Badaling ， Mutianyu ， Huanghuacheng ， Simatai ， Jinshanling （ Hebei province ）

The Ming Tombs are located about 50 kilometers northwest of Beijing right at the foot of Heavenly Longevity Hill .

The third Ming emperor YongLe chose the Ming Tomb site with particular care. Before he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421, he sent a group of fortune tellers to look for an ideal land for the cemetery. At last, this site was selected. 13 Ming emperors, 23 princes and many princesses were buried there . Two of thirteen tombs , Changling and Dingling , are open to the public

The Forbidden City lying at the center of Beijing used to be the imperial palace of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It's 960 meters long and 750 meters wide covering a floor space of 720,000 square meters with 9,999 buildings - the world largest palace. Construction of the palace complex started in 1407 and was completed 14 years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including 100,000 artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor. Huge amount of timbers and other materials were all freighted from faraway provinces. The rectangular city is encircled in a 52-meter-wide, 6-meter-deep moat and a 10-meter-high city wall with four corner towers overlooking the city inside and outside. Since yellow is the symbol of the royal family, it is the dominant color in the Forbidden City . decorations in the palace are painted yellow. Even the Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles;
Generally, it was divided into two parts, the northern half, the Outer Court where emperors executed their supreme power over the nation and the southern half, the Inner Court where they lived with their royal family.
Until 1924 when the last emperor Puyi in China was driven out of the Inner Court , 14 emperors of the Ming dynasty and 10 emperors of the Qing dynasty had reigned here. It is now listed by the UN as World Cultural Heritage in 1987.
Nowadays, it is open to tourists home and abroad. Splendid paintings on the royal architectures, grand and deluxe halls, and surprisingly magnificent treasures will certainly satisfy "modern civilians".

The symbol of China , Tian An Men Square located right in the center of Beijing is the largest city centre square in the world. It is 880 meters long north-south and 500 meters wide east-west, with a total area of 440,000 square meters. It is big for one million people to gather there.
The square used to be an officials ' residential compound south of the Forbidden City in the old days. At the north end of the square is the Tian'an Men Gate( gate of heavenly peace). Right on the north is the Tian'an Men flies the national flag of the People's Republic of China . In the center of the square stands the Monument to People's Heroes and Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. On the west side of square is the Great Hall of the People, Congress hall,On the east side are the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. On the south end of the square are Zheng Yang Men (Gate of Sunlight) and the Arrow Tower of Qianmen (Front Gate). The square is splendid and magnificent. The buildings are symmetrical and harmoniously integrated. State ceremonies and activities of state affairs are held here. Tian ' an Men has witnessed many major political and historical events and SOMETHING

The Temple of Heaven was first built in 1420 under the Ming dynasty . It occupys an area of 273 hectares . In architecture the entire design is symbolic. The southern wall of the Temple is square, while the northern one is semi-circular, a pattern representing the ancient belief that Heaven is round and Earth square. During the Ming and the Qing dynasties, the Emperors would come to worship heaven at the winter solstice and to pray for a good harvest on the fifteenth day of first lunar month. If there happened to be a drought, emperor would come here to pray for rainfall. In addition, emperors also worshiped thier ancestors. Therefore, the ceremony conducted at the Temple of Heaven was an act of national importance.

The Circular Mound Altar, also known as the Altar for Worshiping Heaven, is the place where the emperor worshiped Heaven at the winter solstice.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven is the place where the tablets of the gods were kept, surrounded by a circular wall of polished bricks, known as Echo Wall, where a person whispering close to the wall at any point can be heard distinctly at any other point along the wall. ,

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a lofty, round structure with triple eaves and a cone-shaped blue-tile roof crowned with a gilded knob. That ' s where the Emperors of the Ming and the Qing dynasties prayed for a good harvest on the fifteenth day of first lunar month

The Summer Palace , located in the western suburbs of Beijing , is the last imperial garden built by the feudal dynasties of ancient China . It was destroyed by the British and French Allied Armies in 1860 and then again by the Eight-Powers United Army in1900
The Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) then appropriated the navy's budget to rebuild it. In 1998, this imperial garden, which belongs to world civilization, was entered in the ranks of World Cultural Heritage.
Renshoudian where the Qing emperors met with various ministers.
Yulan Tang built for the relaxation of the Emperor Qianlong was rebuilt in the 18 th year of Guangxu and made into a sleeping chamber for the Guangxu Emperor. ln 1898, after Cixi put the Reform Movement into motion, she locked Guangxu up inside this small palace.
The Leshou Tang Main Hall was the resting palace of Cixi .
the Kunming Lake – Qing navy training lake
is a long corridor which contains 273 small 'rooms' is 728 meters long -the longest corridor in any form of Chinese garden or ancient architecture. Some 8,000 paintings are painted directly on the beams of the corridor.
This is a stone boat that is 36 meters long. The cabin on it is made of wood, and it is furnished with western style tables and chairs.

Pandas came into existence 600,000 to 700,000 years ago. They live in humid and dense bamboo groves in mountains. Statistics show that China now has only approximately 1,000 giant pandas living in the wild in some remote mountain areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Shanxi provinces. Chinese pandas now symbolize the friendship between the chinese people and the people of other countries.......

 Experience the real life of the natives while sitting on rickshaw and enjoying the beautiful view of the lake.
The history of Hutong dates to the Yuan Dynasty established by Kublai Khan, who designed the layout of the city 700 years ago.
But Beijings traditional Hutongs get fewer and fewer due to the rapid development of the old parts of Beijing city. Some central city Hutongs have been preserved because of well- known people who had lived around there.......

 Lama Temple is the biggest Tibetan-style Lamsery in the old downtown of Beijing . It was built in 1694 by Qing emperor Kangxi originally served as residence for his successor, emperor Yongzheng. After the death of emperor Yongzheng in 1735, his coffin was placed in the temple. Emperor Qianlong, successor of Yongzheng, converted it into a lamasery and a residence of large numbers of monks from Mongolia and Tibet for the relation with the two regions. In 1954 Baiqen Erdeni held Buddhist ceremonies in the lamasery.
It houses several exhibition halls, displaying numerous cultural relics, as well as the portraits and history of many of the Dalai Lama. At the back of the temple, there is a famous ‘ Huge Buddha ' – 18 metres high and carved out of a single trunk of white sandalwood.

Confucius was a great thinker, philosopher and educator in ancient China . His teachings contributed to the cultivation of the individual, the regulation of the family, the order of the state and the peace of the world. He was born in 551BC and died in 479BC.
He joined the government services at the age of 51. Later, He became the prime minister of the State of Lu . For some reason Confucius left Lu and returned to Lu to engage himself in writing Spring and Autumn Annals, revising the Book of Odes, the Canon of History, the Book of Rites and Music and studying the Book of Changes.
It is said that he had three thousand disciples, of whom 72 mastered six arts, rite, music, archery, charioteer, writing and arithmetic. His political ideal consisted of love of people, economy in the use of material resources, observation of rites and music and a world where harmony and equality prevail.
A fter the death of Confucius, his disciples and followers were scattered in different states, teaching his way. To commemorate Confucius, the National Government of the Republic of China has since its establishment officially proclaimed the birthday of Confucius as Teachers' Day. (September the 28th)
Confucianism has been the cornerstone of Chinese culture for more than two thousand five hundred years and influenced neighboring countries such as Japan , Korea , Vietnam and others, and it also inspired the eighteenth century French Enlightenment and as a result of modern democratic thought in the West.

The Pool and Cudrania Temple is situated 45 kilometers west of Beijing. Its history could be traced back to 1600 years ago in the Jin Dynasty when it was known as the Temple of Auspicious Fortune. It was expanded in the Tang Dynasty. Its been popularly known as the pool and cudrania trees on the hill behind the temple. There has been a saying,First there was the Pool and Cudrania Temple, then came Beijing.......

Ordination Terrace Temple(Jietaisi) is located 35 kilometers west of Beijing . It was built in 622 in the Tang Dynasty, and was known for its ancient pine trees. It is said that if you sway one of the branches of the sensitive pine, the whole tree will shake.......

About 500,000 to 700,000 years ago there lived a group of cave-dwellers in Dragon Bone Hill, Fangshan district 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing. The fossils, which were discovered in 1929, proved that they had been able to stand upright. Some 18,000 years ago they were much nearer to modern man and learned to make fire by boring wood and used fire for cooking and keeping warm from cold weather. They lived by hunting and gathering.......