[Commentary] The "Map of the Five Cities and Alleys in the Capital of Beijing" during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the first "Complete Map of the First Kindness" that marked the Hutong alleys of Beijing City for the first time during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, and the last map of Beijing as "Peking" in 1949... The new archive of the Beijing Archives was opened, and "Archive Witness Beijing", which is being exhibited in the new archive, used more than 20 precious maps from various eras to describe the changes in Beijing.

　　[Explanation] In the exhibition hall, a "Map of Beijing" with a height of nearly 2 meters is striking.

　　[Same period] Wang Lanshun, Deputy Director, Exhibition and Display Office, Beijing Archives

　　In 1908, Beijing established the Jingshi Water Supply Company and planned the water supply pipelines. These red lines were actually the water supply pipelines planned at that time. There are a lot of red dots on the red line, which is the position of the faucet on the natural water pipeline. In the inner city, we see the tap water pipeline, and its distribution is relatively uniform. In the outer city, it came out of Zhengyangmen, and its tap water pipes were densely distributed, and the faucets were also dense. Why, it was the commercial development of the outer city.

　　[Explanation] In 1916, "Map of Inner and Outer City of Kyoto City" uses different color blocks to partition the city, which laid the foundation for the subsequent division of Beijing City.

　　[Same period] Wang Lanshun, Deputy Director, Exhibition and Display Office, Beijing Archives

　　As you can see in this picture, it is colored. We have hardly seen it before, and the colors are used to partition the map. In 1916, although he had already entered the Republic of China, the little emperor still lived in the Forbidden City, and there were some royal palaces around the Forbidden City. At the east of Tiananmen Square was the Tai Temple, which is now our working people's cultural palace. On the west side of Tiananmen Square is the Shejitan, which is where we are now Zhongshan Park. On this picture, contour lines are also marked. Although we are now walking in the urban area of ​​Beijing, everyone may think it is very flat. In fact, there are still high and low points.

　　[Explanation] The 1930 "Beiping Special City Suburb Map" first recorded the boundaries of Beijing's suburbs, and included the suburbs in the map of Beijing.

　　[Same period] Wang Lanshun, Deputy Director, Exhibition and Display Office, Beijing Archives

　　Before 1925, Beijing did not lead the suburbs, that is to say, Beijing did not care about the suburbs. Then after 1925, Beijing began to have suburbs. Then this picture is a map of Beijing in 1930. . We can see that the old Beijing city is in a "convex" shape, embedded in the suburbs. Outside of him is the suburb, so where does the suburb start from its east point? From Dongba. Where is West Point? Three stores in Mentougou. The north point is what we now call the Lishui Bridge, and the south point is the West Red Gate. This was the "four suburbs" of Beijing at that time.

　　[Commentary] It is reported that "Archive Witness Beijing" uses rich collections of archives historical materials and multimedia technology to reflect the historical changes of the old and the new in the past hundred years in Beijing. It comprehensively introduces Beijing's historical culture, urban development, ecological environment construction and social livelihood. From now on, you can enter the museum with your ID.

　　Fan Siyi reports from Beijing

Editor in charge: [Liu Xian]