Yongdingmen

Yongdingmen (simplified Chinese: 永定门; traditional Chinese: 永定門; pinyin: Yǒngdìngmén; lit. 'Gate of Perpetual Peace') was the former front gate of the outer city of Beijing's old city wall. Originally built in 1553 during Ming Dynasty, it was torn down in the 1950s to make way for the new road system in Beijing. In 2005, the Yongdingmen was reconstructed at the site of the old city gate. This new gate is disconnected from the original road leading towards the gate and into the city (see photograph below).

During the Boxer Rebellion, on 11 June 1900, the secretary of the Japanese legation, Sugiyama Akira (杉山 彬), was attacked and killed by the Muslim soldiers of General Dong Fuxiang near Yongdingmen, who were guarding the southern part of the Beijing walled city.

Text adapted from “Yongdingmen” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Yongdingmen ranks #1,269 of 5,793 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #31 of the 120 mapped in China. Founded 1553, it is older than 43% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 495 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. See how China compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗