1926 China Printing Company Map of Beijing

This is a very rare 1926 (Minguo 15) China Printing Company map of the inner and outer walled city of Beijing. It reflects important changes in the city as it modernized, notably the transfer of the Forbidden City to public use.

A Closer Look at the Map

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this map is the series of tables around the map itself, listing important sites and their location. At top are offices of both the national and municipal government (北京衙署一覽) and a list of schools in the city (北京學校一覽). At left and right are hotels (北京旅館字號地址), and at bottom is a list of native place associations (會館), an indication of the city's great diversity. A legend at top-right refers to geographic features, roads, and railways, while the legend at top-left indicates the color-coding system used for government offices (pink), schools (dark green), and temples (yellow), and symbols for district government offices, archways, city gates, and former gates to the Forbidden City. This map is remarkably detailed down to the individual street and building level, including the interior grounds of landmarks like the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven. It also assiduously marks out temples, schools, government offices, and more. The emphasis on government offices and schools (many of them housed in temples and halls that had been forcibly converted to public use) was an important part of government propaganda in the Republican era, as a sign of moving beyond 'superstition' and embracing modernity.

Beijing in the Republican Era (1912-1949)

Beijing has gone through many name changes over its history, and as 'Dadu' was the capital of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. It became Beijing (meaning 'northern capital') in 1403, when the Ming Emperor Yongle moved the capital from Nanjing ('southern capital') to be closer to the front line of the ongoing war with the Mongols. Under the Ming, Beijing began to take on its modern form, with the Forbidden City, and the city walls protecting and separating the inner and outer city. The Qing Dynasty elaborated the already-grandiose Ming city with palaces and parks.

Beijing initially remained the national capital after the fall of the imperial dynasty and the 1912 transition to a republic, although central power remained weak. The imperial family continued to live in the Forbidden City until 1924, even after several failed attempts to restore the monarchy, most notably in 1917. Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic, also briefly tried to create a new imperial dynasty in 1915 - 1916. By the time this map was made, most government officials and intellectuals, at least, were happy to leave behind any notion of imperial restoration.

The year before this map's production, much of the Forbidden City had been converted to public use, as museums (History Museum 歷史博物館 and Palace Museum 故宮博物院), an Antiquities Exhibition Hall (古物陳列所), a National Archive (囯史館), and park grounds (公園). The makers of this map were sure to refer to palaces, gates, and halls of the Forbidden City as 'former' (舊) and use the new phrase for the area (故宮, meaning 'former palace') as opposed to its imperial era name (紫禁城).

Symbolic battles over the Forbidden City aside, the city grew rapidly at this time and the municipal government was eager to add the trappings of modernity. But the city suffered after the country was loosely united and the capital moved (back) to Nanjing by Chiang Kai-Shek in 1927-28, whereupon Beijing was renamed Beiping.

Changes in the Urban Layout

The Legation Quarter (southeast of the Forbidden City, about half-way between Zhengyang Gate 正陽門 and Chongwen Gate 崇文門) arose in the wake of the Second Opium War (1856 - 1860), when China was forced by Western powers to adopt a Western-style system of foreign embassies and diplomats. This quarter endured a weeks-long siege during the Boxer Uprising (1899 - 1901) and held out until relieved by the forces of the Eight Nation Alliance. In the following years, the entire area was rebuilt, and foreign garrisons (兵營) were added to the embassies. Although not indicated in the legend, the cluster of foreign embassies and garrisons are shaded in purple to the southeast of the former Forbidden City.

A railway station was added just outside Zhengyang Gate (西車站); another train station was added on the east side of the Zhengyang Gate in 1901 (京站, also known as the Zhengyangmen East Railway Station), which served as Beijing's primary station until 1959 (today it houses a railway museum).

The developing streetcar networks of Beijing are also evident. Schools, post offices, and telegraph offices all proliferated in the 1920s - 1930s, as municipal authorities tried to build a modern city on the edifice of the imperial capital. The city would go through additional expansion and changes in the following decades, most notably during the early years of the People's Republic era, when most of the city walls were torn down for the construction of the Beijing subway and the 2nd Ring Road, which follows the course of the city walls.

Publication History and Census

This map was published in October 1926 by the China Printing Company (中華印刷局). It is not known to exist in any institutional holdings and is very scarce to the market.