Early history

The earliest remnants of human habitation in the Beijing municipality are found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian, where the Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the caves date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic homo sapiens also lived there about 27,000 years ago. There were cities in the vicinities of Beijing by the 1st millennium BC, and the capital of the State of Yan, one of the powers of the Warring States Period, was established in present-day Beijing.

Medieval period

In 936, the Later Jin Dynasty (936-947) of northern China ceded a large part of its northern frontier, including modern Beijing, to Liao Dynasty who set up a secondary capital in what is now Beijing. In 1125, the Jin Dynasty conquered Liao, and in 1153 moved its capital to Liao's which was situated slightly to the southwest of central Beijing. Some of the oldest existing relics in Beijing including the Niujie Mosque and the Tianning Temple date to the Liao era.

Ming and Qing period

After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the city was later rebuilt by the Ming Dynasty and Shuntian prefecture was established in the area around the city. In 1403, the third Ming Emperor Yongle moved the Ming capital from Nanjing to the renamed Beijing (Peking) (北京), the "northern capital", situated in the north. During the Ming Dynasty, Beijing took its current shape, and the Ming-era city wall served as the Beijing city wall until modern times, when it was pulled down and the 2nd Ring Road was built in its place.
It is believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world from 1425 to 1650 and from 1710 to 1825. It is now the 17th largest city in the world.

Republican era

The Xinhai Revolution of 1911, aimed at replacing Qing rule with a republic, originally intended to establish its capital at Nanjing.With Japan's surrender in World War II, on 15 August 1945, Beijing's name was changed back to Beiping.
Mao Zedong proclaiming the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

People's Republic

On January 31, 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces entered Beijing without a fight. On October 1 of the same year, the Communist Party of China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, announced in Tiananmen the creation of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. Just a few days earlier, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference had decided that Beijing would be the capital of the new government, and that its name would be changed back to Beijing.
Early 2005 saw the approval by government of a plan to finally stop the sprawling development of Beijing in all directions. Development of the Chinese capital would now proceed in two semicircular bands just outside of the city centre (both west and east) instead of being in concentric rings.