Round City

The round city is located outside the south gate of the Beihai Park. It is a little round city built with bricks. It is 4.6 meters high with a perimeter of 276 meters. Its total size is 4553 square meters. The Round City is an inseparable part of the Beihai Park. In the Liao and Jin Dynasties, the location was commonly known as “Yuanchi”, a little islet in the middle of a lake. In the Yuan Dynasty, a stone city was piled around “Yuanchi”, and the result was called “Round City” or “Tuanchi”; later, people often call it “Tuancheng”. In the Ming Dynasty, a city wall with parapets and battlements was built around it and the lake was filled. Later it was reshaped into the current peninsula seen today. During the Qing Dynasty, it was renovated many times. During the early years of the Republic of China, it was used by Yuan Shikai (a northern warlord) as a space to convene “political meetings”. It was also used as the office of the Managing Committee of Finance and the Committee for Protecting and Managing Historical Relics.