Outside of Beijing City lies the City Province (Municipality) of Beijing, where there are even more worthwhile monumental, historical and scenic sites to visit and enjoy.
Starting with an Introduction and Overview of the Cities' Province and its facts and figures, this text Reviews the highlights and Main Scenic Sights to be visited in and around The Province. From those Monuments located nearest Beijing and those most well-known, to the remote and more obscure this pages gives a short but thorough introduction to Beijing City Province and its historic Monuments.
Covering a surface area of 16 Thousand 800 Square Kilometers (6.487 sq. Miles) Beijing Municipality is one of China's 4 large City Provinces. To the South-East lies Tianjin Municipality and all other surrounding area's are taken up by Hebei Province.
Today Beijing Municipality counts some 15 Million + inhabitants, spread over 16 Districts and 2 Townships. For proper understanding and easy navigation and travel throughout the Province however, it is easier to see things in a slightly simplified perspective.
The first Layer consists of the Inner Suburbs of Beijing, some of who's Monuments used to demand quite some traveling time and in practice lay at quite some traveling distance from the Ancient Walls of the Ming and Ching Dynasty Capital, and the Central City Center within the 2nd ring road.
A Geographic Map overview of North-East China's Hebei Province entire, delineating Hebei Provincial Borders, Beijing City Province, Tianjin City Province and parts of neighboring Shanxi-, LiaoNing- and Shandong Provinces and Inner Mongolia AR. Map includes Great Wall of China Locations in Hebei Province, Main Cities and Towns (shown by size), Hebei Province Monuments, Main Mountains (with Height), major highways, railroads, waterways, and Airports (National & International) and links to furher information.
An Introduction and historic backgrounds to each Beijing City District with Menus accessing each Landmark, Monument or Hot-spot Photo-Report, Maps and Sources.
Shunyi District lies adjacent of Changping District due North-East of Beijing's old city center. To the North of Shunyi lies the town of Huairou and beyond Miyun, the Miyun Reservoir and several sections of the Great Wall of China. Both Huairou and Miyun are part of the 4 Rural Districts and Counties or the outermost fringes of the north of Beijing City Province.
Source Book "Old Beijing - In the Shadow of (the) Imperial Throne"
as "Beijing Shunyi Airport City" and "Beijing Tianzhu Export Processing Zone". The airport city in total measures 86.5 square kilometers in size of which some 25 square kilometers are part of the core Zone, with many security restrictions. The Beijing Shunyi Airport City has been growing fast in capacity, and by 2011 an estimated 150.000+ people will be working and living in this industrial zone. Although now listed as an industrial zone, there are however many parts of Shunyi, and the airport city which are very beautiful, rural and comfortable for living and leisure.
Beijing and its economy however does not rely merely on its Airport. Shunyi District is also home to the Beijing Automobile Manufacturing Base, representing the second type of Industry found in today's Shunyi. Since its founding in the year 2003 this zone especially has contributed for a large part to the thriving of the economy of the City of Beijing. Apart from a manufacturing zone, there is a seperate logistics warehousing zone, another zone for spare parts and a fourth sub-zone for public facilities serving the auto-making industry. By 2015 AD the Automobile manufacturing zone in Shunyi is expected to reach the size of 15 square kilometers, up from a mere 6.3 square kilometers in 2005. Meanwhile, some other industries have moved into the base. These are the biological pharmaceutical industry and some photo-electric manufacturing industries.
Map of the Northern Half of Beijing Municpality, marking Shunyi as a red dot. The Airport Expressway connecting the City Center to Shunyi and Capital Airport can clearly be indentified in the North-East corner of the City.
The Third pillar of Industries found in Beijing and the Shunyi District are the Modern Service Industries, which mainly means that in Shunyi there is a giant logistical zone connected directly to the Capital International Airport. Located on the northern side of Beijing Capital Airport are some 6.2 square kilometers entirely dedicated to the running of the airport and all it supplies and personnel. The new International Exhibition Center, opened in 2006, is the center point of public attention within this zone and is expected to become the largest and busiest such center in the entire Nation.
Both the airport expressway, the airport express train connect directly to New China International Exhibition Center as does the No. 101 National Highway and the light railway under development in this district. Not visible to visitors but vital to its function, the logistic zone attached to the Airport City is among the most well-connected districts of the City. A Full wireless and optical network relays information to related industries and customs, keeping them informed by the minute on what comes in via Beijing Airport, or is set to leave.
Shunyi is no longer a village by all means and an industrial zone with lots of economic activities. In practical terms it has become an indispensable district of the larger Metropolis of Beijing. However, this does not mean that the Shunyi District has entirely shed all of its previous character as a rural village district.
The fourth pillar of Industry in Shunyi is that of modern agriculture, thrown together by the City Government in what is called the Three-High Agriculture Scientific and Technical Experiment Zone. Planned as early as the year 1995 AD, the agricultural zone has reached it full size at this time.
The Fifth and last pillar of Industry is dubbed the Urban Beverages and Food Industries by City Government. The main representatives of these are the Yanjing Beer Factory, which is a large complex
A Part of Northern Shunyi District as seen from an aircraft on aprroach to Beijing Capital Airport. Clearly development has been extensive and is ongoing.
found in Shunyi District, and the Huiyuan (Fruit) Juice Plant. This section of Shunyi Industrial base has also welcomed meat processing and packaging industries.
Apart from all this Shunyi County is also the location of the "Beijing Central Villas District", a extended neighborhood with luxury housing and villa's for both the local well-to-do and foreign expatriates. From west to east, the villas' of Shunyi County include EuroVillage, the River Garden, Le Leman Lake, Capital Paradise, Gahood, Yosemite - one of the earliest- and Dragon Bay Villa. The Villas' area is a suburban downtown area which includes its own set of mini shopping malls and entertainment central.
In the advent of the 2008 AD Olympic Games of Beijing a Rowing-Canoeing Park was constructed in the Shunyi District, which with a total of 28.961 square meters in surface area is today by far the largest multipurpose watersports facility in Beijing. The Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park is also known as Shunyi Olympic Water Park, or Shunyi Olympic Water Garden among the local population. t was the location for the rowing and canoeing events of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic games and still offers hotel facilities and plenty of sporting space for canoeeing, rowing and kayaking. It is currently still used to hold local and national events in watersports as well as events of other nature. Pop Concerts, Sports Fairs, Markets, etc.
A Last new entertainment and leisure Venue in the Shunyi District is the Beijing Rural Horse Racecourse. Originally a part of the Northern Holiday Village at Chaobai and then known as Beijing Countryside Rural Horese Racecouse, the Horse race venue was further expanded by three square kilometers in advance of the Beijing Olympic games and hosted some of the pre-match activities such as a training facilities, the forage warehouse for all horses and classifying runs. The new horserace venue had a spectator capacity of over 20.000 people and saw the Show Jumping Events of the 2008 Olympics. Now no longer in function as a horseracing course, the venue has been revamped once more, to become a fully equipped high-quality Golf Course able to host International Events.
At the same Time Chaobai Village has been transformed and revamped into an official National Forest and reacreation area. The completed park has a total surface area of 52.9 million square meters, of which 16.2 million square meters are made up of lakes, reservoirs and ponds and 36.7 miilion square meters, some 70%, are reserved forested area's.
Map of Beijing City Province and ALL Locations of The Great Wall of China visitable within Beijing City Province and Immediate Vicinity.
Browse the Map to Find the Great Wall at far away Yellow Cliff (HuangYaGuan), little known JiangJun Guan, Steep and Eroded Simatai, world famous Jinshanling - the longest Great Wall Site in existence, Gubeikou, White Horse Pass (Bai Ma Guan),Beishicheng, Mutianyu, Jiankou, DaZhenyu, Huanghuacheng, XishuiYu, Juyong Guan Pass and Fortress, and finally Badaling the most visited Great Wall of China Site in the Peoples Republic.
The Village of Shunyi lies due North of the Chaoyang Business District and is the home of its very own architectural marvel, the renewed Capital Airport with its stunning new Terminal and great rail and subway connections to all Northern Districts. Apart from the airport Shunyi County is mainly an industrial zone, the location of some of the infra-structure and logistical business that serve the citizens of Beijing.
The Shunyi District, which is named
after its main Village, covers a 1021 Square Kilometers in Total, in the past much of it rough or agricultural, but today much more developed in including a fully modern infra-structure system, not only of highways, but of postal services, electronic connections, power facilities, water supplies and gas pipelines.
According to the City Government some 29% of the Shunyi District is still covered with Forests, while by 2011 about 50% of the surface area has been developed for some kind of human use.
As may have been deduced from the above, their are no major historic monuments or architectural wonders to marvel at in Shunyi, except for the now famous 'Olympic' Terminal 3, which is a giant building almost too big to appreciate as the work of art that it is and the Shunyi Olympic Water Sports Gymnasium, which was especially constructed for the 2008 Olympic Games.
The design of both these huge buildings is best appreciated from the air. As may be the Shunyi District itself. When leaving from Capital Airport at night, the highways of Shunyi District with thousands of cars rushing along in order make up a remarkable view.
The Key economic area's within Shunyi District today are the Airport City and the Airport Logistics Base, the so-called Shunyi New City, the Shunyi Automobile manufacturing base, the Chaobai Tourist Area's, The Three High Agriculture Model Zone, the New China Exhibition Center and last the Olympic Watersports Gymnasium.
Among things Shunyi District is home to the Tianzhu Development Zone, which is located in the region abutting the Capital International Airport to the west. Inside the Tianzhu Development Zone is the largest international exhibition center in China, opened in early 2008 AD. Further sub-divisions in the types of Industry have been made by the City Government in order to speed along Development. The Five main subdivisions that apply to Shunyi are: 1) The airport related high tech industries, 2) Modern Service Industries, 3) Modern Manufacturing industries, 4) Modern Agriculture, and 5) Urban beverage and food industries.
Naturally all of these can be found according to the most auspicious and efficient location.
The airport related high tech industries have been reorganized during the construction of terminal 3 in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. As can clearly be seen when taking the Airport Expressway into Town many of these industries have now been brought together in what is known
Due to the presence of the International Airport, and all the other industries in the district, as mentioned, Shunyi prides itself on being especially well connected. There are several good roads and highways in the District, first and foremost the Airport Expressway, which connects directly from the City to the Airport. Depending on how bad the traffic is, travel time ranges between 45 minutes to 1.5 hours from the Inner City to the Airport. Several Highways have been added to support the industry in Shunyi and neighboring districts. To ease highway traffic a lot of transport is routed via railroads. The Beijing-Chengde and Datong-Qinghuangdao railway lines pass through Shunyi District and can be used to ship products and supplies from Shunyi to outlying regions and vice versa. From Shunyi it is a 35 minute train ride, some 30 kilometers, to the Beijing Main Railway Station in the Dongcheng District and slightly more to the Beijing Western Railway Station, the two main railway hubs connecting Beijing with the Nation. More important for the industry in Shunyi, it is only 15 kilometers from the main cargo depot of Beijing, the so called Zhangxi railway Cargo Station
There is even a waterway system that is used for transportation, but this is only for cargo not for leisure tours..
According to the Shunyi District Government it takes some 90 minutes to drive from Shunyi to Tanggu Port outside and East of Tianjin on the Bohai Bay of the Yellow Sea.
For the more normal visitors to Beijing, or just regular Tourists, Shunyi can best be reached through the Subway/Metro system using the red line, connecting through SihuiDong Station Northwards on the Grey Line. Another option is traveling to Shunyi Station via the Beijing Zhan - Main Railway Station in the Dongcheng District of Beijing.
Other options are much more complicated and involve taking buses or taxi's to your destination. Do not try it if you don't have to. If you do, best bring a very good map of the area.
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