Beijing

Getting Around

Beijing's central city retains its carefully planned historic layout, arranged around a central north-south axis seven-and-a-half kilometers (five miles) long that passes through the city's entire central core, from the Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the north, through the Forbidden City at the center, to the site of the former Yung-ting Gate in the south. This central core is actually the remnant of two adjoining walled cities, whose outlines are retained although their walls are long gone—a roughly square-shaped "inner" city to the north and a rectangular "outer" city to the south.