Beijing: Capital city of China

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October first marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. From today News Hour on CCTV International brings you a series of reports on each of China's provinces, municipalities and special administrative regions. And today's first episode, we look at Beijing, the capital city of China.

Beijing, a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the country. It borders Hebei Province and the Municipality of Tianjin.

Beijing is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. There were cities in the vicinity of Beijing as far back as 1000 BC. Beijing was established as the capital of the State of Yan. It was one of the powers of the Warring States Period,that lasted from 473-221 BC.At that time Beijing was known as Ji.

Beijing became the most important political center in Yuan Dynasty near the latter part of 13th century. The city then was spelled as Cambaluc in Marco Polo's accounts. It remained this way through the Ming and Qing dynasty.

Now governed as a municipality under direct administration by the central government, Beijing is recognized as the political, educational, and cultural center of China. It hosted the 2008 Olympic Games.

Beijing is amongst the most developed cities in China. In 2008, its nominal GDP was about 1.05 trillion yuan RMB, or 150 billion US dollars, a growth rate of 9 percent from the previous year. Finance is one of the most important industries, while real estate and automobile sectors have boomed in recent years.