Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is the largest city center square in the world. It is the heart of Beijing and can hold up to 1 million people for a grand gathering. In the center of the square stands the Monument to the People’s Heroes and the solemn Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. The west side of the square is the Great Hall of the People. On the east side is the Chinese Revolutionary Museum and the Chinese History Museum. On the south side are two ancient towers built in the 14th century. Yangmen and Qianmen Building. Both sides of the Tiananmen Square are the People’s Cultural Palace and Zhongshan Park. The entire square is magnificent, tidy, symmetrical, and magnificent.
The Tiananmen Gate was first built in 1417 in the Ming Dynasty. During the demise of the Ming Dynasty, heavy fighting between Li Zicheng and the early Qing emperors damaged (or perhaps destroyed) the gate. The Tian'anmen square was originally designed and built in Beijing in 1651. It was enlarged to its present size (four times its original size) and cemented over in 1958.
British and French troops who invaded Beijing in 1860 pitched camp near the gate and briefly considered burning the gate and the entire Forbidden City down. They decided ultimately to spare the palace and to burn instead the emperor's Old Summer Palace. The Qing emperor eventually agreed to let the foreign powers establish headquarters in the area. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 the siege badly damaged the office complexes and several ministries were burnt down. In the conflict's denouement, the area became a space for foreign troops to assemble their armies and horses. It was cleared in due course to produce the beginning of what is now known as the Tiananmen Square.
Near the center of today's square, close to the site of the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, once stood one of the most important gates of Beijing. This gate was known as the "Great Ming Gate" during the Ming Dynasty, "Great Qing Gate" during the Qing Dynasty, and "Gate of China" during the Republic of China era. Unlike the other gates in Beijing, such as the Tiananmen and the Qianmen, this was a purely ceremonial gateway, with three arches but no ramparts, similar in style to the ceremonial gateways found in the Ming Dynasty Tombs.
This gate had a special status as the "Gate of the Nation", as can be seen from its successive names. It normally remained closed, except when the Emperor passed through. Commoner traffic was diverted to two side gates at the northern and eastern ends of today's square, respectively. Because of this diversion in traffic, a busy marketplace, called Chessgrid Streets developed in the big, fenced square to the south of this gate. In the early 1950s, the Gate of China (as it was then known) was demolished along with the Chessgrid Streets to the south, completing the expansion of Tiananmen Square to (approximately) its current size.
In the center of the Tiananmen Square is the National Flagpole, made of 4 seamless steel tubes, 32.6 meters high, and 7 tons in weight, which will not get rusty for 20 years. Fluttering on the flagpole, is the bright and red national flag with, five yellow stars. It was designed by Mr. Zeng Liansong and adopted by the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The big yellow star in the center represents the Communist Party of China and the four smaller ones symbolize the masses the Chinese people surrounding the Communist Party of China. The National Flag was first raised by Cy Chairman Mao Zedong on October 1st 1949, when from Tian’anmen Rostrum, he proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Since May 1st, 1991, we have the flag-raising ceremony every morning at sunrise when the sun rises above the horizon, and we also have the flag lowering ceremony every day at sunset.
Tian’anmen or the Gate of Heavenly Peace is a symbol of new China. It was from the rostrum of the gate that Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. It is located in the center of Beijing and stands on the northern end of the Tian’anmen Square. It was first built in 1420 and of the Tian’anmen Square. It was first built in 1420 and was originally called the Gate of Heavenly Succession (Chengtlianmen), which served as the main entrance to the former Imperial City. At the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644, it was seriously damaged in a war. When it was rebuilt in 1651 in the Qing dynasty, the name was changed to Tian’anmen.
The gate has five passages. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the passage in the middle was especially reserved for the emperor himself. The emperor went through the central passage on the way to the Alters and Temples for ritual and some other sacrificial activities, as well as the expedition to the battles in person.
During the Ming and the Qing dynasties, Tian’anmen was the place where important state ceremonies for issuing the imperial edict took place, such as: the emperor’s enthronement, conferring the le honorable title on the empress or tor the crown prince, dispatching generals on an expedition to the battle. The most famous “Imperial Edict Issued by Golden Phoenix” was held in the tower.
South of the Monument to the People’s Heroes is Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. The foyer houses a seated figure of Chairman Mao in white marble. Behind it is a 7-by-24 metre needlepoint woolen tapestry “Such a beauty is our motherland.” In the second room, Chairman Mao’s remains recline in a crystal coffin, with the red flag of the Communist Party of China draped over his body. The building was completed in 1977.
Currently, the remains of late Chairman Mao are mechanically raised from a freezer for viewing, then lowered again at night.
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