Yongning Town () is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

in the

Yanqing District Yanqing District (), formerly known as Yanqing County before 2015, is a district of the municipality of Beijing located northwest of the city proper of Beijing. The district consists of 3 subdistricts, 11 towns and 4 townships, and borders th ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

. It is a small town in rural Beijing but has a long history as an economic and military center. A government initiative in the 2000s to rehabilitate the town has restored its architectural landmarks. It is located to the south of Xiangying and Liubinbao Townships, west of Sihai and Jiuduhe Towns, north of Dazhuangke Township and Jingzhuang Town, and east of Shenjiaying and Jiuxian Towns. As of 2020, it had 23,483 residents under its administration. The region was named Yongning in 1414 with the meaning of "Eternal Peace".

Geography

Yongning Town is on the eastern part of Yanhuai Basin, with Xinhuaying River flowing pass the western portion of the town.

History

During the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

it was an important military town, serving as the eastern command of the Xuanfu garrison area. There were 8,000 troops under the jurisdiction of Yongning town during that period. However, by the late

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

the town declined in importance. By the end of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

in 1976, the cultural relics of the town's past were gone.

Administrative Divisions

So far in 2021, Yongning Town is formed from 37 subdivisions, with 1

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...

and 36

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

. They are listed as follows:

Culture and tourism

The town has benefited from a government initiative in the 2000s to restore some of the glory of its condition during its Ming dynasty height. At the center of the town square is a tower. Yongning Catholic Church, a church tracing back to the

, stands today as a curious

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architecture in contrast to the appearance of the rest of the town.

Gallery

File:Flickr - Shinrya - Top of the Great Wall at Badaling.jpg, Portion of the Great Wall on the southeast of the town, 2012 File:延庆 - panoramio.jpg, Yongning Town, 2014

References