About the city—Beijing
Geography
Beijing is situated at the northern tip ofthe roughly triangular North China Plain, which opens to the south and east ofthe city. Mountains to the north, northwest and west shield the city andnorthern China's agricultural heartland from the encroaching desert steppes.The northwestern part of the municipality, especially Yanqing County andHuairou District, are dominated by the Jundu Mountains, while the western partis framed by the Western Hills, or Xishan. The Great Wall of China, whichstretches across the northern part of Beijing Municipality, made use of thisrugged topography to defend against nomadic incursions from the steppes. MountDongling, in the Western Hills and on the border with Hebei, is themunicipality's highest point, with an altitude of 2,303 metres (7,556 ft).
Major rivers flowing through themunicipality include the Yongding River and the Chaobai River, part of the HaiRiver system, and flow in a southerly direction. Beijing is also the northernterminus of the Grand Canal of China, which was built across the North ChinaPlain to Hangzhou. Miyun Reservoir, built on the upper reaches of the ChaobaiRiver, is Beijing's largest reservoir, and crucial to its water supply.
The Beijing Botanical Garden
The urban area of Beijing is in thesouth-central part of the municipality and occupies a small but expandingportion of the municipality's area. It spreads out in bands of concentric ringroads, of which the fifth and outermost, the Sixth Ring Road (the numberingstarts at two), passes through several satellite towns. Tian'anmen andTian'anmen Square are at the center of Beijing, directly to the south of theForbidden City, the former residence of the emperors of China. To the west ofTian'anmen is Zhongnanhai, home to the paramount leaders of the PRC. Runningthrough central Beijing from east to west is Chang'an Avenue, one of the city'smain thoroughfares.
Climate
Beijing has a rather dry,monsoon-influenced humid continental climate, characterized by hot, humidsummers due to the East Asian monsoon, and generally cold, windy, dry wintersthat reflect the influence of the vast Siberian anticyclone. Spring can bearwitness to sandstorms blowing in from the Mongolian steppe, accompanied byrapidly warming, but generally dry, conditions. Autumn, like spring, seeslittle rain, but is crisp and short. The monthly daily average temperature inJanuary is ?3.7 °C (25.3 °F), while in July it is 26.2 °C (79.2 °F).Precipitation averages around 570 mm (22.4 in) annually, with close tothree-fourths of that total falling from June to August. Extremes have rangedfrom ?27.4 °C (?17 °F) to 42.6 °C (109 °F).
Culture
People native to urban Beijing speak theBeijing dialect, which belongs to the Mandarin subdivision of spoken Chinese.This speech is the basis for putonghua, the standard spoken language used inmainland China and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore.Rural areas of Beijing Municipality have their own dialects akin to those ofHebei province, which surrounds Beijing Municipality.
Beijing or Peking opera (京剧, Jīngjù)is a traditional form of Chinese theater well known throughout the nation.Commonly lauded as one of the highest achievements of Chinese culture, Beijingopera is performed through a combination of song, spoken dialogue, and codifiedaction sequences involving gestures, movement, fighting and acrobatics. Much ofBeijing opera is carried out in an archaic stage dialect quite different fromModern Standard Chinese and from the modern Beijing dialect.
Beijing cuisine is the local style ofcooking. Peking Roast Duck is perhaps the best known dish. Fuling Jiabing, atraditional Beijing snack food, is a pancake (bing) resembling a flat disk witha filling made from fu ling, a fungus used in traditional Chinese medicine.Teahouses are common in Beijing.
The cloisonné (or Jingtailan, literally"Blue of Jingtai") metalworking technique and tradition is a Beijingart specialty, and is one of the most revered traditional crafts in China.Cloisonné making requires elaborate and complicated processes which includebase-hammering, copper-strip inlay, soldering, enamel-filling, enamel-firing,surface polishing and gilding.[98] Beijing's lacquerware is also well known forits sophisticated
Younger residents of Beijing have become more attracted to the nightlife, whichhas flourished in recent decades, breaking prior cultural traditions that hadpractically restricted it to the upper class.and intrinsic patterns and imagescarved into its surface, and the various decoration techniques of lacquerinclude "carved lacquer" and "engraved gold".
Transportation
With the growth of the city in the wake ofeconomic reforms, Beijing has evolved as the most important transport hub inthe People's Republic of China, and within the larger East Asian region.Encircling the city are five ring roads, nine expressways and city expressroutes, eleven China National Highways, several railway routes, and aninternational airport
Education
Beijing is home to a great number ofcolleges and universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University(two of the National Key Universities), and Capital University of Economy andBusiness is the key University in Beijing. Owing to Beijing's status as thepolitical and cultural capital of China, a larger proportion of tertiary-levelinstitutions are concentrated here than in any other city in China (at least70). Many international students from Japan, Korea, North America, Europe,Southeast Asia, and elsewhere come to Beijing to study every year, some throughthird party study abroad providers such as IES Abroad and others as part of anexchange program with their home universities. The schools are administered byChina's Ministry of Education.