Beijing

The word “Beijing” means the capital city of China. In plain terms, china's capital city, or shorthand for the Chinese government.

“Beijing” is pronounced bay-JIHNG (/beɪˈd͡ʒɪŋ/ in IPA).

Here is “Beijing” used in a sentence: “Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008.”

“Beijing” is a proper noun.

The word “Beijing” comes from Chinese. From Mandarin Chinese Běijīng, meaning "northern capital," named to contrast with the southern city of Nanjing ("southern capital").

“Beijing” is a fairly common word in modern English.

“Beijing” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the capital city of China.

Beijing and Peking refer to the same city, the capital of China; "Peking" is an older romanised spelling, while "Beijing" reflects the modern pinyin system now used internationally. Some traditional names, such as Peking duck and Peking University, still keep the older spelling.

Like many capital cities, Beijing is often used in news and political writing to stand for the country's national government, as in "Beijing announced new policies." This is a figure of speech called metonymy, where the seat of power represents the government itself.

Beijing is the capital of China and its political and administrative centre, while Shanghai is China's largest city and a major commercial and financial hub. Beijing is often linked with government and history; Shanghai with business and trade.