Beijing Legation Quarter - Legation Quarter

Legation Quarter

Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1856-60, the Zongli Yamen was established as a foreign office of the Qing and the area around Dong Jiangmi Xiang was opened for a number of foreign legations.

The foreign legations were originally scattered close to the Qing imperial government in the southern part of Beijing's old inner city, just east of Tian'anmen Square and north of Qianmen and Chongwenmen. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Legation Quarter became the center of an international incident as it was besieged by Boxers for several months. After the siege had been broken by the Eight-Nation Alliance at the end of the Battle of Peking, the foreign powers obtained the right to station troops to protect their legations under the terms of the Boxer Protocol. The Legation Quarter was encircled by a wall and all Chinese residents in the area were ordered to move out. Sealed off from its immediate environment, the Legation Quarter became a city within the city exclusively for foreigners and many Chinese nationalists resented the Quarter as a symbol of foreign aggression.

It was also a term of the Boxer Protocol that the street's name be changed to "Legation Street", with the Chinese name changed to Dong Jiaomin Xiang, a name which sounds similar to the original but can be interpreted as "Diplomatic Personnel Lane". Most of the Chinese ministries removed their offices from the street.

In 1937, upon the eruption of the Second Sino-Japanese War, most foreign legations, apart from those of the Axis Powers, quit Beijing. The Legation Quarter was then officially handed back to the Republic of China government.