The China Millennium Monument, celebrations and festivities to usher in Year 2000 make up one of the grandest spectacles at the end of the century, as mankind strides towards the new century and millennium.

New opportunities, challenges, and hopes are emerging over the horizon of China of the 21st century. The Chinese nation, with its splendid civilization of 5000 years, is on the threshold of an epoch of great renewal, as a future of yet greater splendour is arising in the …

National Art Museum of China is located on Wu Si Street. It is a national level art museum focused on displaying, collecting and researching the works of the artists in China modern times. Chairman Mao Zedong wrote the name of the museum.

National Art Museum of China covers an area of 30,000 square meters with its construction acreage of 17,051 square meters. And its exhibition halls are 6,000 square meters. The construction was started in 1958 and finished in 1962. It is …

The chairman Mao Zedong Memorial Hall stands on the former sits of Zhonghuamen Gate at the southern end of Tian’anmen Square between the Monument to the People’s Heroes and Zhengyangmen Gate.

Red Sichuan granite at its base and trees around the hall is designed on principles of symmetry and “centrality.” Sculptures north and south supplement the artistic rendering of national struggle presented on the Monument to the People’s Heroes.

The first floor is open to the public. Behind the white …

Beijing Zoo Guide - Beijing Zoo is notable for its pandas (if Sìchuān is not on your itinerary), even if the remaining resident menagerie is cooped up in pitiful cages and enclosures. The polar bears pin their hopes on graduating from their concrete cosmos to the far more stellar Beijing Aquarium in the northeastern corner of the zoo.

Beijing Zoo, situated to the west of Beijing Exhibition Center, was known for a short time after the founding of the People’s Republic …

The Underground City has also been called the Underground Great Wall, since they had the same purpose: military defense. This complex is a relic of the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969 over Zhenbao Island in northeast China’s Heilongjiang River, a time when chairman Mao Zedong ordered the construction of subterranean bomb shelters in case of nuclear attack.

The tunnels, built from 1969 to 1979 by more than 300,000 local citizens and even school children, wind for over 30 kilometers …

Beijing Police Museum is a policeman’s profession death and danger, or glory and glamour? Answers vary when one peeks into handcuffs, cracked skulls, shell-proof vests, bloody scenes, hero badges and martyr names carved on the walls

Housed in the former imposing American Citibank, Beijing, the Beijing Police Museum helps define the lives of policemen in the capital. On display are 1,500 pieces out of a collection of 7,000 in the four-storey, 2,000 square metre exhibition areas.

Through relics, pictures, models and bilingual …

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall takes particular pains to present Běijīng’s gut-wrenching, hútòng -felling metamorphosis in the best possible light. English labelling is sadly scarce; the only exhibits of note are a detailed bronze map of the town in 1949 - ironically the very year that sealed the fate of old Peking - and a huge, detailed diorama of the modern metropolis.

The rest of the exhibition is a paean to modern city planning and the unstoppable advance of the concrete mixer, …

For serious stargazing in Beijing, head to the Beijing Planetarium. Shows vary monthly and English is seldom used. If your Chinese is up to scratch, then you may learn a thing or two from your visit. If you are still at a beginner’s level, sit back and enjoy one of the few clear night skies you are likely to see in smoggy Beijing during your visit.

Built in September 1957, the Beijing Planetarium was the first of its kind in China. …

The Beijing Museum Natural History (“BMNH”) is located at 126, Tian Qiao Nan Street, Chong Wen District, Beijing,100050, and is the most popular natural history museum in China. It was originally founded in 1951 as the National Central Museum of Natural History, and its name changed to the Beijing Museum of Natural History in 1962. The BMNH is the first large scale natural history museum created in China.

The BMNH has total floor space of 24,000 square meters, of which 8000 …

The Beijing Botanical Garden (Chinese: 北京植物园; pinyin: Běijīng Zhíwùyuán) is a botanical garden situated in the northwestern outskirts of Beijing, China between Xiangshan (Fragrant Hills) Park and Jade Spring Mountain (zh:玉泉山) in the Western Hills. It was established in 1955. The Beijing Botanical Garden covers about 564,000 square metres. The gardens include a dozen exhibition districts and halls, such as the tree garden, a perennial bulb garden, a rose garden, a peony garden, a traditional Chinese medical herb garden, a …