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 The
structure of the city today is basically the original one of the Ming
and Qing Dynasties (1368-1644, 1644-1911). During that time, the city
was walled on all sides and generally made up of the inner city and the
outer city.
Basically, the inner city is square in shape and the outer city is rectangle
in shape. The outer one surrounded the southern side of the inner one;
the inner one surrounded the Imperial City; the Imperial City surrounded
the Forbidden City and each one was embraced by a deep and wide city moat.
So the Forbidden City became the center of the whole city, being guarded
tightly.
A central axis, which is about 7.5 kilometers long, running through the
middle of the Forbidden City from Yongdingmen in the south to the Bell
Tower in the north and cutting it into two parts: the eastern one and
the western one. From Zhengyangmen in the south to Di'anmen in the north
formed a restricted zone and no one was allow to go from east to west
crossing this area. The main and grand gates and palaces in it all stood
on this axis. All of the other ones were arranged along it according to
the rule of bilateral symmetry.
The design and geographical layout of the city were all for serving the
feudal emperors. The walls and city moats were built for their security;
all of the palaces, temples and their positions were all for showing the
crowning majesty of each emperor.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the outer city had seven gates; the
inner city had nine and the Imperial City had four. Gates are called "men"
in Chinese. So Yongdingmen I mentioned above means Yongding gate, which
belongs to the outer city. All these gates stood either on the central
axis or bilateral symmetrically so the main streets in both inner and
outer cities seemed to form a big chessboard in appearance from a bird's-eye
view. Most of the streets ran from north to south and hutongs mostly ran
from east to west. All of the streets had fixed size: big ones were twenty
four-pace-wide; small ones were twelve-pace-wide. Quite narrow ones were
called hutong.
In the past emperors devoted particular care to geomantic omen, Feng Shui
in Chinese. They would sit in the north and face the south and believed
that they and their descendants would be the emperors for ever.
After the Liberation in 1949, the walls have gone; the restricted zone
functions no longer; some gates are being used as museums opening to the
public; some gates have been pulled down and their remaining names mean
the area around the place where the gates used to stand. Especially in
recent years, new roads and buildings have been coming up continuously,
so the setup of the city which has the south to north central axis and
buildings in the east and west standing symmetrically has been broken.
But generally speaking, the basic layout of the ancient city still exists.
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