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anding, desheng; dongdan, xidan; donghuamen, xihuamen... for hundreds of years, ancient and symmetrical place names have built the urban skeleton of beijing. it is understood that since the announcement of the first batch of traditional place names protection list in the capital's functional core area in 2022, more than 1,000 place names in beijing have been included in the protection.

place names are part of the city's memory. especially for the ancient capital of beijing, many hutongs and alleys are living fossils, and their names often carry profound cultural heritage and vivid folk stories. the earliest zhuanta hutong in the list is named after the blue brick ancient tower standing in the hutong, and it has been passed down for more than 700 years; baihua shenchu ​​and jintai xizhao are popular because of their literary and artistic style, and the corresponding beautiful scenery has been famous for a hundred years; hepingli and qingnian road are young, but they carry the good wishes of the people to commemorate peace and commend young people since the founding of new china... across a long time scale, today's place names have long transcended the meaning of geographical coordinates. including traditional place names in the protection not only reflects the protection of urban history, but also provides an index for future generations to understand the city.

a river with a clear source will flow long, and a river with deep roots will have luxuriant leaves. beijing attaches great importance to the protection of place names. as early as the 1980s, the city's place name resources were collected and sorted out in the first place name census, and a place name gazetteer, place name map, and place name directory were formed. in recent years, from clearly stating in the city's overall plan to "protect more than a thousand streets and alley names", to proposing "traditional alleys, historical streets and traditional place names" in detailed planning, from the compilation of traditional place name protection lists to the promulgation of the "beijing place name management measures", the policy measures that have been passed down to this day are to protect the spiritual landmark in the hearts of the people today when the city is developing rapidly. these place names make the sense of belonging of "the land and water support the people" concrete, and also remind us all the time that "only by knowing where we come from can we know where we are going."

today, cities are getting bigger and bigger, and more and more buildings are being built. there are also irregular and weird place names. in response to this, beijing has also put forward a series of requirements in place name management. for example, in urban renewal, priority should be given to the use and restoration of existing place names; when existing place names cannot meet the use needs, new innovative place names can be added, and the innovative place names should also reflect the regional cultural characteristics and planning function positioning. protecting old place names and standardizing new place names will surely allow more people to understand the city and fall in love with beijing through these long or short place names.

when a piece of land is given a name, it is the beginning of its new life. a piece of land and water breeds a place name; a place name carries a culture. we hope that more warm collective memories can be retained in urban renewal.

source: beijing daily client

process editor: u070