Behind this gate lies Běihǎi, “the northern sea”, a lake with an island crowned by a white dagoba. It is one of the oldest surviving imperial gardens in the world, and the reason Beijing is where it is.

1The island that created a capital

As early as the 12th century, the emperors of the Jin dynasty built a pleasure palace here, dug out the lake and used the earth to raise Qionghua Island, the “jade island”. When Kublai Khan decided to found his capital, Dadu, in the 1260s, he laid it out around this lake. So the heart of the Mongol city was right here.

2A souvenir of Kublai

Beside you is the Tuancheng, the “Round City”. Inside is a huge black jade vessel that Kublai had carved in 1265 to serve wine at his banquets. It was lost for centuries and, so the story goes, turned up in a nearby temple, where the monks were using it to store pickles.

The White Dagoba was built in 1651 at the request of a Tibetan lama. Two earthquakes brought it down, in 1679 and 1731, and each time it was rebuilt.

The lake opened to the public as a park in the 1920s. A children's song hugely popular in China, “Let Us Row Together”, describes children in a boat beneath the White Dagoba.

3What to look for

  • The White Dagoba, about 36 metres tall, on the island.
  • The Tuancheng, with its curving wall.
  • The marble bridge linking the shore to the island.

Documented

The Jin created the lake and the island in the 12th century, Kublai laid out Dadu around them, the jade vessel dates from 1265 and the White Dagoba from 1651.

Oral tradition

The rediscovery of the jade vessel in a temple where it was used to store pickles is a story handed down without precise documentation.

Sources and credits

Beihai Park, official information; Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, “Chinese Imperial City Planning” (1990); Lin Yutang, “Imperial Peking: Seven Centuries of China” (1961).

Photos:

  • The White Dagoba on Qionghua Island, reflected in Beihai lake: Bjoertvedt, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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