Tiananmen Square

This article is about the city square. For the historical event, see 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

Tiananmen Square
Groups of people wander around Tiananmen Square in the late afternoon. The eponymous Tiananmen, literally "Gate of Heavenly Peace", sits in the background.
Tiananmen Square in 2020
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese天安门广场
Traditional Chinese天安門廣場
Hanyu PinyinTiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinTiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng
Bopomofoㄊㄧㄢ   ㄢ   ㄇㄣˊ
ㄍㄨㄤˇ   ㄔㄤˇ
Gwoyeu RomatzyhTian'anmen Goangchaang
Wade–GilesTʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3
IPA[tʰjɛ́n.án.mə̌n kwǎŋ.tʂʰàŋ]
Wu
Shanghainese
Romanization		Thie-oe-men Kuaon-zan
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationTīn'ōnmùhn Gwóngchèuhng
JyutpingTin1on1mun4 Gwong2coeng4
IPA[tʰíːn.ʔɔ́ːn.mȕːn kʷɔ̌ːŋ.tsʰœ̏ːŋ]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJThian-an-mn̂g Kóng-tiûⁿ
Manchu name
Manchu scriptᡝᠯᡥᡝ ᠣᠪᡠᡵᡝ ᡩᡠᡴᠠ
Romanizationelhe obure duka

Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (/ˈtjɛnənmən/[1]) is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly Peace") located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there.[2] The size of Tiananmen Square is 765 x 282 meters (215,730 m2 or 53.31 acres).[3] It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.

Outside China, the square is best known for the 1989 protests and massacre that ended with a military crackdown due to international media coverage, internet and global connectivity, its political implications, and other factors.[4][5][6] Within China, there is a strict censorship of knowledge of the crackdowns by the Chinese Communist Party.[7]

  1. ^ "Tiananmen Square". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021.
  2. ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed
  3. ^ "Tiananmen Square incident". Britannica. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  4. ^ Miles, James (2 June 2009). "Tiananmen killings: Were the media right?". BBC News. Retrieved 3 November 2010.
  5. ^ "Tiananmen Square protest death toll 'was 10,000'". BBC News. 23 December 2017. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  6. ^ "The Truth Behind The Tiananmen Square Massacre - CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2023-06-30.
  7. ^ Ruan, Lotus; Knockel, Jeffrey; Ng, Jason Q.; Crete-Nishihata, Masashi (December 2016). "One App, Two Systems". figure 9. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2019.