 Chang'An ("Perpetual
Peace") is the name
of one of the most important ancient capital cities of
China. Known as the eastern terminal of the Silk Road,
Chang'An is located in Shaanxi Province near Xi'An.
The city was first constructed
beginning about 200 BC at the behest of Emperor Gao Zu;
it was destroyed in AD 904.
A wall encloses an
area of approximately 84 square kilometers. Chang'An's
most striking building is perhaps the Temple of Heaven,
a pounded earth platform of four concentric rings, built
during the
Tang dynasty. In 1970, a hoard of 1000 silver
and gold objects, as well as jade and other precious
stones called the Hejiacun Hoard was discovered at
Chang'An.
Chang'An served as capital to the Han, Sui, and Tang
dynasty leaders, but entered the
greatest period of its development under the Tang
dynasty (618-904).
At the height of its glory in the
mid-eighth century, Chang'An was the most populous,
cosmopolitan, and civilized city in the world, occupying
some 84 sq. km. with around one million inhabitants. The
poet Lu Zhaolin provided a vivid description of an
imperial procession through the city:
Chang'An's
broad avenues link up with narrow lanes,
where one sees Black oxen and white horses,
coaches made of seven fragrant woods.
The emperor's jade-fit palanquin sweeps past the
mansions of princesses,
Gold riding whips in an unending train point toward
marquises' homes.
The dragon biting the jeweled canopy catches the
morning sun,
The phoenix disgorging dangling fringes is draped
with evening's red clouds.
 It suffered major
damage during the An Lushan rebellion in the mid-8th
century, but even toward the end of the Tang period,
when the empire was in disarray, the "enormous size" of
the city impressed an Arab visitor. The Tang period was
one of the most noteworthy ones for the impact of
Western products and fashions on Chinese elite culture,
and the teeming markets of the capital played a
significant role in the dissemination of such goods.
Among the dominant figures at least under the early Tang
(in fact their presence in China can be documented from
several centuries prior to that) were Soghdian merchants
from the region of Central Asia which encompasses
today's Samarkand.
The glory days of
Chang'An were numbered. With the collapse of the Tang at
the beginning of the tenth century, Chang'An decayed
rapidly. However, it continued to play a role in the
Western trade and experienced a revival under the Ming
beginning in the late fourteenth century.
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Chang'An City Planning
During the Tang dynasty, the city’ s
population may have reached one million people, with
some five hundred thousand inside the city walls and
as many outside....Changan was a large city, with
the outer walls stretching 9.5 kilometers (5.92
miles) long along the east-west axis and 8.4
kilometers (5.27 miles) along the north-south axis.
Five meters (5 yards) high, these walls were made of
pounded earth covered with bricks; they formed a
perfect rectancle....
The layout of Chang'An was unconventional in some
ways. The city designers, who, like the royal
families they served, came from a mix of Chinese and
Central Asian backgrounds, felt free to modify
classical prescriptions about how a Chinese city
should be built. Ancient texts described the model
city as one surrounded by a square wall, with the
emperor’s palace at the center of the city, the
market to the north, and the temple to the imperial
ancestors and the shrine of the earth to the south.
One scholar has neatly summed up the logic of the
plan: “The ruler, facing south in his audience hall,
receiving his officials and conducting public
business, literally turns his back on the market and
thus symbolizes the lowly position which official
ideology assigned to commerce.” ...The Chang'An
planners placed the palace flush against the north
wall and allowed sufficient space for two markets to
the south of the palace. The emperor and the
imperial family lived in the palace in the north of
the city; this was not open to the public, but
almost everything else in the city was. |
Explore the Main Characters:
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The Emperor
Tang XuanZong |
The Princess
Yang GuiFei |
The Prince
Li Mao |
The Barbarian
An Lushan |
The Servant
Gao Lishi |
The Chief
Minister
Yang Guozhong |
The Poet
Li Bai |
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