[14] Beijing is a global city and one of the world's leading centres for culture, diplomacy, politics, finance, business and economics, education, research, language, tourism, media, sport, science and technology and transportation and art.

As the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political center of the country for most of the past eight centuries,[23] and was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium AD.

[44] Two generations later, Kublai Khan ordered the construction of Dadu (or Daidu to the Mongols, commonly known as Khanbaliq), a new capital for his Yuan dynasty to the northeast of the Zhongdu ruins.

The city was centered on the Drum Tower slightly to the north of modern Beijing and stretched from the present-day Chang'an Avenue to the northern part of Line 10 subway.

[47] Since the Yuan continued to occupy Shangdu and Mongolia, Dadu was used to supply the Ming military garrisons in the area and renamed Beiping (Wade–Giles: Peip'ing, "Northern Peace").

(A 1425 order by Zhu Di's son, the Hongxi Emperor, to return the primary capital to Nanjing was never carried out: he died, probably of a heart attack, the next month.

Dorgon established the Qing dynasty as a direct successor of the Ming (delegitimising Li Zicheng and his followers)[55] and Beijing became China's sole capital.

The fomenters of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 sought to replace Qing rule with a republic and leaders like Sun Yat-sen originally intended to return the capital to Nanjing.

[67] In the final phases of the Chinese Civil War, the People's Liberation Army seized control of the city peacefully on 31 January 1949 in the course of the Pingjin Campaign.

In December 1978, the Third Plenum of the 11th Party Congress in Beijing under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping reversed the verdicts against victims of the Cultural Revolution and instituted the "policy of reform and opening up".

[74] In recent years, the expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some problems of urbanization, such as heavy traffic, poor air quality, the loss of historic neighborhoods, and a significant influx of migrant workers from less-developed rural areas of the country.

In the early 21st century, Beijing has witnessed tremendous growth of new building constructions, exhibiting various modern styles from international designers, most pronounced in the CBD region.

[100] Because of the combined factors of urbanization and pollution caused by burning of fossil fuel, Beijing is often affected by serious environmental problems, which lead to health issues of many inhabitants.

Shandong Province and Tianjin Municipality have a "significant influence on Beijing's air quality",[102] partly due to the prevailing south/southeasterly flow during the summer and the mountains to the north and northwest.

[103] Beijing implemented a number of air improvement schemes for the duration of the Games, including halting work at all construction sites, closing many factories in Beijing permanently, temporarily shutting industry in neighboring regions, closing some gas stations,[104] and cutting motor traffic by half by limiting drivers to odd or even days (based on their license plate numbers),[105] reducing bus and subway fares, opening new subway lines, and banning high-emission vehicles.

[109] Since 2012, the city has been converting coal-fired power stations to burn natural gas[110] and aims to cap annual coal consumption at 20 million tons.

[112] Power plants in the coal-mining regions of Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, where coal consumption has tripled since 2000, and Shandong also contribute to air pollution in Beijing.

[118] According to Beijing's environmental protection bureau's announcement in November 2016, starting from 2017 highly polluting old cars will be banned from being driven whenever Smog "red alerts" are issued in the city or neighboring regions.

[121]: 169–170 Beijing's annual average concentration of major airborne fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, declined to 30 micrograms per cubic meter in 2022, the best air quality for the city since 2013.

[166] In 2017 the Chinese government implemented population controls for Beijing and Shanghai to fight what it called the "big city disease" which includes congestion, pollution, and shortages of education and health care services.

[34][170][35] The capital also leads the world with the highest share of articles published in the natural sciences, especially in the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-related output.

Commonly lauded as one of the highest achievements of Chinese culture, Beijing opera is performed through a combination of song, spoken dialogue, and codified action sequences involving gestures, movement, fighting and acrobatics.

Cloisonné making requires elaborate and complicated processes which include base-hammering, copper-strip inlay, soldering, enamel-filling, enamel-firing, surface polishing and gilding.

Younger residents of Beijing have become more attracted to the nightlife, which has flourished in recent decades, breaking prior cultural traditions that had practically restricted it to the upper class.

[212][213][214][215] The religious heritage of Beijing is rich and diverse as Chinese folk religion, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity all have significant historical presence in the city.

There are temples dedicated to the worship of the Goddess (娘娘; Niángniáng) in the city, one of them near the Olympic Village, and they revolve around a major cult center at Mount Miaofeng.

Famous rock bands and solo artists from Beijing include Cui Jian, Dou Wei, He Yong, Pu Shu, Tang Dynasty, Black Panther, The Flowers, 43 Baojia Street, etc.

The Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, in Haidian District, tracks the country's crewed and uncrewed flight and other space exploration initiatives.

[253][254][255] The Beijing Aquatic Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center protects the Chinese giant salamander, Amur stickleback, and mandarin duck on the Huaijiu and Huaisha Rivers in Huairou District.

[258][259] In May 2016, Common cuckoos nesting in the wetlands of Cuihu (Haidian), Hanshiqiao (Shunyi), Yeyahu (Yanqing) were tagged and have been traced as far as India, Kenya and Mozambique.