BEIJING lies in the north of the North China Plain, at 39°56′N and 116°20′E. it neighbors the Tianjin Municipality in the east, and borders Hebei Province on three sides-the north, west and south. The terrain of the Beijing area slopes from the northwest to the southeast. Mountains snake round the city's north, west and northeast, while the southeast part of the city is a plain that slopes gently toward the coast of the Bohai Sea. The Yongding, Chaobai and Juma rivers and the north section of the Grand Cannel crisscross the area under Beijing's jurisdiction. Most of the rivers originate from mountainous areas in the northwest, cut through mountains and zigzag through the plain in the southeast before emptying into Bohai Sea.

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The major ceremonial buildings of the palace are aligned on a north-south axis that extends beyond the walls toward the Temple of Heaven complex and Yongding Gate in the south. The main entrance to the palace complex is via the Meridian Gate ( Wumen ), from which the New Year was announced each year by the emperor, proclamations were read, and the fate of prisoners decided. Past five white marble bridges and the Gate of Supreme Harmony, a great courtyard could accommodate up to several thousand people for state ceremonies such as the imperial weddings.

The three most important ceremonial buildings are on the north-south axis, raised on a high white marble terrace, and accessed by ramps carved with ornate dragons over which the emperor was carried in a palanquin. The three main halls and associated side buildings formed the outer courtyard of the Forbidden City , devoted primarily to official and ceremonial functions, but including imperial libraries and studies. The inner chambers at the rear of the Forbidden City included private living and sleeping quarters of the imperial family, divided into three palaces and twelve courtyards. The Western Palaces were the residences of empresses, concubines, and princes. The Eastern Palace halls are now used as museum exhibition s paces, devoted to ritual bronze vessels, ceramics, craft objects, antique clocks, and paintings, including objects from the imperial collections and archaeological finds. The back precincts include the Palace of Aging Peacefully (Ningshou Gong) where the Qianlong Emperor of the late 18th century spent his retirement years.

After the founding of the People's Republic, Tiananmen Square became symbolic of the socialist state through the construction in 1959 of the Great Hall of the People on its western side, and the Museums of Chinese History and the Chinese Revolution on its eastern edge. In the same period, a Monument to the People's Heroes was erected in the center of the square. In addition, following Chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, a Chairman Mao Mausoleum building was erected directly on the main north-south axis of the square. It contains the preserved body of Mao in a crystal sarcophagus, along with a standing marble statue of the Chairman. China 's imperial past, revolutionary history, and political present are all represented vividly in Tiananmen Square.

The emperor, as Son of Heaven, performed priestly as well as ruling functions. Each year on the day of the winter solstice, following three days of fasting and meditation, the emperor would offer sacrifices and pray for a good harvest at the Altar of Heaven, a three-tiered round white marble structure, built in 1530 and reconstructed in 1740. The round altar sits on a square base, symbolic of the meeting of heaven and earth, a theme carried through in the shape of the complex as a whole, a semicircle atop a square.

Just north of the Altar of Heaven is the octagonal Imperial Vault of Heaven building, which contained tablets of the imperial ancestors and astronomical plaques of the constellations and meteorological occurrences. The outer wall of the Vault of Heaven Hall is known as the Echo Wall, from its ability to transmit even whispered voices around its length. Farther north is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, originally built in 1420, remodeled in 1545, destroyed by lightning in 1889, and rebuilt in the following year, in part using Oregon fir wood for the supporting pillars.

The Ming sections of the wall are only a late stage in a long history, much of which has little to do with the present structures. The wall is most often associated with the First Emperor of China (Qin Shi Huangdi, reigned 221-210 BC ) , who after unifying China by conquest undertook to link up previously existing sections of walls belonging to conquered states, but on a course far to the north of the present wall. The First Emperor mobilized massive conscripted labor forces, including convicts and prisoners, by some accounts up to a million strong, to conduct this building campaign.

While the Great Wall in its various versions had real military defensive functions, it also served symbolic purposes. For long periods Chinese populations lived north of the wall and nomads or semi-nomads lived south of it. The wall served as a symbolic reminder of dynastic authority and also of cultural distinction between settled agrarian culture and cit i es on the Chinese side and pastoral horsemen on the other. It continues today to serve as a marker of cultural and national identity.