From Takow to Kaohsiung

Beiping Road (北平路), Taichung City & Zhongzheng District, Taipei

Have you ever wondered why Taipei has no Beijing Rd? After all, it has streets named for just about every other city throughout China, from Xiamen and Guilin in the south to Tianjin and Liaoning in the north, and from Chongqing and Kunmng in the west to Qingdao and Xikou in the east.

Well, the answer is: it does. It’s just that Beijing wasn’t called Beijing when the KMT-led ROC lost the civil war and decampted (temporarily) to Taiwan in 1949. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and Civil War, the under-siege government had moved its capital several times, ultimately to Nanjing (南京).

Peking drum tower (1906) ~ photo: Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, Beijing (北京; lit. “Northern Capital”, then romanized using the Post Office spelling of “Peking”) was “downgraded” to an earlier name of Beiping (北平; sometimes explained as “Northern Peace” but more likely implying “Northern Plains”, at that time romanized as “Peping”).

Indeed, over the centuries since it was first inhabtited, the city now known as Beijing has had numerous names, including:
Jicheng (薊城);
Yanjing (燕京);
Nanjing (南京; "Southern Capital") since, during the 10th~12th centuries, northern China was under the control of the Liao Dynasty whose capital Shangjing (上京) was in today's Inner Mongolia; and
Dadu (大都; "Great Capital")
For a full list, see here.



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