BEIJING – 3D Timelapse – 1045 BC to 2026

Beijing grows in 3D on its real plain: from Ji, the town Beijing dates its founding to (1045 BC), to a capital of about 21.8 million people. 3,000 years in 10 minutes. CHAPTERS 0:00 I. Ji to Zhongdu: Beijing's founding date (1045 BC) 0:13 Qin takes Ji (226 BC) 0:23 The Gaoliang River and the Tianning Pagoda (979–1120) 0:46 Zhongdu, the Jin capital, and the Mongol siege (1153–1215) 1:02 Zhongdu burns (1215) 1:19 II. Khanbaliq: a new city round the lakes (1267) 1:33 Dadu and the White Dagoba (1271–1279) 1:53 Marco Polo and the Grand Canal (1293 – c. 1298) 2:09 The last Yuan emperor leaves, the Ming army enters (1368) 2:43 III. Ming: the Forbidden City (1406–1420) 2:54 The Temple of Heaven, gates and towers (1420–1439) 3:11 Tumu and the defence of Beijing (1449) 3:30 The Round Hall and Altan Khan's raid (1545–1550) 3:48 The Outer City wall (1553) 4:00 The Great Wall at Badaling (from 1505) 4:15 Qi Jiguang's watchtowers and the Key to the North (1569–1582) 4:42 Li Zicheng takes Beijing, the last Ming emperor, the palace burns (1644) 5:07 IV. Qing: the Manchus enter Beijing (1644) 5:19 The White Dagoba of Beihai and the Great Hall fire (1651–1679) 5:39 Yuanmingyuan and its European palaces (1709–1759) 6:02 British and French troops loot and burn the Old Summer Palace (1860) 6:20 The Temple of Heaven burns and rises again (1889–1896) 6:33 The Boxers: the Qianmen fire and the siege of the legations (1900) 6:53 The legations relieved (1900) 7:06 V. Republic: Puyi abdicates, May Fourth (1912–1919) 7:21 The Palace Museum opens, the Marco Polo Bridge (1925–1937) 7:35 Japanese occupation and surrender (1937–1945) 7:51 The entry parade and the People's Republic (1949) 8:07 VI. Modern Beijing: the Outer City walls fall (1950s) 8:19 Greater Beijing and the enlarged square (1958–1959) 8:36 Ten Great Buildings and the first subway (1959–1965) 8:53 The Cultural Revolution and the last gates (1966–1970s) 9:11 Reform and opening, the protests of 1989 (1978–1989) 9:27 Hutongs give way to new blocks (1990–1999) 9:41 The Olympic Games (2008) 9:52 CCTV Headquarters (2012) 10:03 China Zun and Beijing today (2018–2026) Which city should we build next? Tell us in the comments, and share your favourite moment with a timestamp. HOW IT WAS MADE 3D built in Blender on the real terrain of the Beijing plain. Up to the 20th century the city is a reconstruction: houses fill the documented extent of each period; walls, gates, palaces, temples and armies are placed from archaeology, historical maps and written sources, and where scholars disagree we show one reading. From the 20th century on, today's building footprints and heights rise in periods estimated from satellite built-up data. Every caption comes from our research dossier (about 300 sources) and was fact-checked against it. AI tools helped with research and scripting; every date was checked against the sources. Population before modern censuses is estimated (≈). Buildings are simplified: a visual reconstruction, not an exact record. SOURCES (selection) Hou Renzhi (historical geography of Beijing) · Liaoshi, Jinshi, Yuanshi, Mingshi (dynastic histories) · Rixia jiuwen kao (1774) · Beijing Institute of Archaeology / CASS · Palace Museum · Foreign Relations of the United States · Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol) · Encyclopaedia Britannica · Wikipedia (EN/ZH) CREDITS Data Elevation: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen / Linux Foundation; SRTM courtesy NASA/USGS, GMTED2010, ETOPO1). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0, www.openstreetmap.org/copyright). Historical map data: OpenHistoricalMap contributors (CC0 1.0). Building footprints and heights: CMAB, Zhang Y., Zhao H., Long Y. (2025), Scientific Data 12:430 (CC BY 4.0). Building ages estimated with GISA 2.0 (Huang X. et al. 2022, CC BY 4.0), WSF-Evolution © DLR (Marconcini et al. 2021, CC BY 4.0) and GHS-BUILT-S R2023A © European Union, JRC (Pesaresi & Politis 2023, doi:10.2905/9F06F36F-4B11-47EC-ABB0-4F8B7B1D72EA, CC BY 4.0). Music I. "The Ancient Legend", vitalezzz (OpenGameArt.org, CC0) II. "Medieval: Exploration", RandomMind (OpenGameArt.org, CC0) III–IV. "Laments of the War", Cethiel; "Fantasy: Lament for a Warrior's Soul", "Medieval: Harvest Season", RandomMind (OpenGameArt.org, CC0) V. Josef Suk, Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale "St. Wenceslas", Op. 35a, Musopen String Quartet (public domain, musopen.org) VI. Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 2, Op. 73: IV. Allegro con spirito, Musopen Symphony / Czech National Symphony Orchestra (public domain, musopen.org) Sound effects: Mixkit (mixkit.co) and OpenGameArt.org contributors (CC0) 3D: trees from Nature Kit by Kenney (kenney.nl, CC0); terrain, houses, landmarks and armies built in Blender for this film Fonts: Cinzel, EB Garamond (SIL Open Font License) #Beijing #3DTimelapse #History