The Tian'anmen

The Gate of Heavenly Peace is the front entrance into the Imperial City

A close-up of the rooftop

The Tiananmen or Tian'anmen (Simplified Chinese: 天安门; Traditional Chinese: 天安門; pinyin: Tiān'ānmén; Manchu: Abkai elhe obure duka), is the main entrance to the Imperial City, the central part of Beijing, People's Republic of China. Although commonly referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City, that honour properly rests with Meridian Gate. The Tian'anmen is located along the northern edge of Tian'anmen Square. Image File history File linksMetadata Tiananmen. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Tiananmen. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (3601x2415, 2920 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (3601x2415, 2920 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x687, 542 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x687, 542 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiÇŽntǐzì; also Simplified Chinese: 简化字; Traditional Chinese: 簡化字; pinyin: jiÇŽnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets. ... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... The Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic languages of Altaic family; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ... The Imperial City (Chinese: 北京皇城; Pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«ng Huángchéng) is a section of the city of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties. ... Beijing [English Pronunciation] (Chinese: 北京 [Chinese Pronunciation]; Pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«ng; IPA: ), a city in northern China, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... Overview of the Forbidden City For other uses, see Forbidden City (disambiguation). ... Meridian Gate, viewed from the south The Meridian Gate (Traditional Chinese: 午門; Simplified Chinese: 午门; pinyin: WÇ”mén) is the southern (and largest) gate of the Forbidden City. ... Tiananmen Square (Simplified Chinese: 天安门广场; Traditional Chinese: 天安門廣場; Pinyin: Tiānānmén GuÇŽngchÇŽng) is the large plaza near the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. ...

History

The gate was originally named Chengtianmen (Simplified Chinese: 承天门; Traditional Chinese: 承天門; pinyin: Chéngtiānmén), or "Gate of Accepting Heavenly Mandate". The gate was damaged by lightning in 1457, and was not repaired until 1465. It suffered another blow in the war at the end of Ming Dynasty - in 1644 the gate was burnt down by rebels led by Li Zicheng. Following the establishment of the Qing Dynasty and the Manchu conquest of China proper, the gate was rebuilt and was given its present name in 1651. Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiÇŽntǐzì; also Simplified Chinese: 简化字; Traditional Chinese: 簡化字; pinyin: jiÇŽnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets. ... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... The Mandate of Heaven (天命 Pinyin: Tiānmìng) was a traditional Chinese concept of legitimacy used to support the rule of the kings of the Shang Dynasty and later the Emperors of China. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Events University of Freiburg founded. ... Events July 13 - Battle of Montlhéry Troops of King Louis XI of France fight inconclusively against an army of the great nobles organized as the League of the Public Weal. ... For other uses, see Ming. ... // Events February to August - Explorer Abel Tasmans second expedition for the Dutch East India Company maps the north coast of Australia. ... Lǐ Zìchéng (李自成) (September 22, 1606 - 1644), born Li HóngjÄ« (鴻基), was a rebel in late Ming Dynasty China who proclaimed himself ChuÇŽng Wáng (闖王), or The Roaming King. Born in Mizhi District (米脂縣), Yanan Subprefecture (延安府), Shaanxi, Li grew up as a shepherd. ... The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; Pinyin: QÄ«ng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, is a Chinese term for the Empire of the Great Qing (Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: dàqÄ«ngguó), founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what... The Manchu (Manchu: Manju; Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: MÇŽnzú, Mongolian: Манж) are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (todays Northeast China). ... // Events January 1 - Charles II crowned King of Scotland in Scone. ...

It has been recently revealed by Xinhua News Agency that the Chinese government had reconstructed the Tian'anmen gatehouse in 1969-1970. The gate as it stood was by then 500 years old, and had badly deteriorated, partly due to heavy usage in the 1950s-60s. As the gate was a national symbol, then-Premier Zhou Enlai ordered that the rebuilding was to be kept in secret. The whole gate was covered in scaffolding, and the project was officially called a "renovation". The rebuilding utilised traditional techniques and material, and all details were designed to be identical to the original gate.^[1] Front gate of the main building of Xinhua News Agency in Beijing The Xinhua News Agency (Simplified Chinese: 新华社; Traditional Chinese: 新華社; pinyin: ), or NCNA (New China News Agency), is the official press agency of the government of the Peoples Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and... PRC redirects here. ... This is a Chinese name, Zhou is the surname. ...

Meaning of Name

The Chinese name of the gate, Tiān'ānmén 天安門, is made up of the Chinese characters for "heaven," "peace" and "gate" respectively, which why the name is conventionally translated as "The Gate of Heavenly Peace". However, this translation is somewhat misleading, since the Chinese name is derived from the much longer phrase "receiving the mandate from heaven, and stabilizing the dynasty." (受命于天，安邦治國).^[2] The Manchu name of the gate, Abkai elhe obure duka, lies closer to the original meaning of the gate and can be literally translated as the "Gate of Heavenly Peacemaking."^[3] The gate has a counterpart in the northern end of the imperial city, Dì'ānmén 地安门 (Manchu: Na i elhe obure duka), which may be roughly translated as the "Gate of Earthly Peacemaking". The Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic languages of Altaic family; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ...

Description

A distant view of the Tian'anmen

Like other official buildings of the empire, the gate has unique imperial roof decorations. It has the highest number of figures on the roof ridges - ten in each set. Image File history File links View_of_Tiananmen_Gate. ... Image File history File links View_of_Tiananmen_Gate. ... Chinese imperial roof decoration or roof charms or roof-figures (檐獸 / 檐兽; Pinyin: yán shòu) or (走獸 / 走兽; Pinyin: zǒu shòu) or (蹲獸 / 蹲兽; Pinyin: Dūn shòu)was only allowed on official buildings of the empire. ...

In front of the gate are two lions standing in front of the gate and two more guarding the bridges. In Chinese culture, lions are believed to protect humans from evil spirits. Binomial name Panthera leo (Linnaeus, 1758) Synonyms Felis leo (Linnaeus, 1758) The lion (Panthera leo) is a mammal of the family Felidae and one of four big cats in the genus Panthera. ...

Two stone columns, called huabiăo (华表) - each with an animal (hou) on top of it - also stand in front of the gate. Originally, these installations were designed for commoners to address their grievances by writing or sticking up petitions on the columns. However, the examples in front of the Imperial City were purely decorative and instead connoted the majesty of the imperial government.

One of the last publicly displayed portraits of Mao Zedong at the Tian'anmen gate.

Because of the gate's position at the front of the Imperial City, and historical events that have taken place on Tian'anmen Square, the gate has great political significance. In the 20th Century this means the gate has frequently been decorated with portraits of objects of veneration. In the early years of the People's Republic, on special occasions the gate was hung with portraits of Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, with pride of place reserved for Sun Yat-sen. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 820 KB) Summary Portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen Gate. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 820 KB) Summary Portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen Gate. ... Tiananmen Square (Simplified Chinese: 天安门广场; Traditional Chinese: 天安門廣場; Pinyin: Tiānānmén GuÇŽngchÇŽng) is the large plaza near the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. ... Sun Yat-sen (November 12, 1866–March 12, 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader who had a significant role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. ...   (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) (also Mao Tse-Tung in Wade-Giles transliteration) was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader, who led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, leading to the establishment of the People’s Republic of... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was an immensely influential philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary. ... Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal – August 5, 1895, London), a 19th-century German political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). ... Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: , better known by the alias   (Ленин)) (April 22, 1870 – January 24, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first head of Soviet Russia, and the primary theorist of the ideology that has come to be called Leninism, which... Stalin redirects here. ... Sun Yat-sen (November 12, 1866–March 12, 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader who had a significant role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. ...

Cyclists heading to the office in front of the Forbidden City

Since the death of Mao in 1976, the central gate has had a portrait of Mao Zedong towering over it, while the western and eastern walls have had giant placards; the left one reads "Long Live the People's Republic of China" (中华人民共和国万岁), while the right one reads "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples" (世界人民大团结万岁). The right placard used to read "Long Live the Central People's Government", and both placards are written in simplified Chinese instead of traditional Chinese characters. The phrasing has significant symbolic meaning, as the phrase used for long live, like the palace itself, was traditionally reserved for Emperors of China, but is now available to the common people. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1800x1350, 398 KB) This image was originally posted to Flickr as Commuting to Work. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1800x1350, 398 KB) This image was originally posted to Flickr as Commuting to Work. ...   (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) (also Mao Tse-Tung in Wade-Giles transliteration) was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader, who led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, leading to the establishment of the People’s Republic of... Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiǎntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Banzai redirects here. ... The king or wang (王 wang2) was the Chinese head of state from the Zhou to Qin dynasties. ...

The reviewing stands in the foreground are used on International Workers Day (May Day) and on the National Day (October 1) of the People's Republic of China. May Day is May 1, and refers to any of several holidays celebrated on this day. ... It has been suggested that National holiday be merged into this article or section. ... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

In front of the stands is the palace moat, still filled with water but now containing decorative illuminated fountains. The moated manor house of Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, England Moats (also known as a Fosse) were deep and wide water-filled trenches, excavated to provide a barrier against attack upon castle ramparts or other fortifications. ...

In ancient times, the Tian'anmen is the third gate encountered when entering Beijing. After the Qianmen, the Gate of China, stands the Tian'anmen. Proceeding further inward, the next gate is the 'Upright Gate', identical in design to the Tian'anmen; behind it is the southern entrance of the Forbidden City itself, known as the Meridian Gate. Beijing [English Pronunciation] (Chinese: 北京 [Chinese Pronunciation]; Pinyin: Běijīng; IPA: ), a city in northern China, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... The Qianmen in Beijing The Qianmen (Simplified Chinese: 前门; Traditional Chinese: 前門; pinyin: Qiánmén; literally Front Gate) is the common name for the gateway known formally as Zhengyangmen (Simplified Chinese: 正阳门; Traditional Chinese: 正陽門; pinyin: Zhèngyángmén). ... The Gate of China in Beijing (Chinese: 中华门; pinyin: ) is a historical ceremonial gateway in Beijing, China, located near the centre of todays Tiananmen Square. ... Overview of the Forbidden City For other uses, see Forbidden City (disambiguation). ... Meridian Gate, viewed from the south The Meridian Gate (Traditional Chinese: 午門; Simplified Chinese: 午门; pinyin: Wǔmén) is the southern (and largest) gate of the Forbidden City. ...

The Tian'anmen is featured on the emblem of the People's Republic of China. The National Emblem of the Peoples Republic of China (中华人民共和国国徽) contains a representation of Tiananmen Gate, the entrance gate of the Forbidden City from the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, in a red circle. ...

Footnotes

External links

• Photos of Tian'anmen

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