Chang'an: The Tang Capital and Greatest City of Its Age

Chang’an was the capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties of China and, in the 7th and 8th centuries, probably the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the world. Founded in 582 by the Sui emperor Wen under the name Daxing, it was laid out as a vast walled grid of residential wards, palaces and two great markets on the site of modern Xi’an. As the eastern end of the Silk Road, it drew merchants, monks and envoys from across Asia, and its plan was copied by capitals in Japan and Korea.

Background: a new capital for a new dynasty

The Guanzhong plain around the Wei River had been the seat of earlier dynasties, including the Western Han, whose capital was also called Chang’an. By the late 6th century that old city, inhabited since about 200 BC, was cramped, its water was brackish and its buildings were in poor condition.

Shortly after founding the Sui dynasty in 581, Emperor Wen decided to build a completely new capital a short distance to the south-east. Work began in 582 under the direction of officials including the gifted engineer Yuwen Kai, and the court moved into the new city in 583. It was named Daxing (“Great Prosperity”), after the emperor’s earlier title as Duke of Daxing. When the Tang dynasty replaced the Sui in 618, it kept the city as its capital and renamed it Chang’an, “Perpetual Peace”.

The plan of the city

Daxing-Chang’an was one of the most rigorously planned cities of the pre-modern world. Its outer walls, built of rammed earth, measured about 9.7 km east to west and 8.6 km north to south, enclosing some 84 square km. Within them, a grid of broad avenues divided the city into rectangular wards, usually counted as 108.

At the northern centre stood the Palace City, home of the emperor, and directly south of it the Imperial City, which housed government offices. From the Imperial City’s main gate, Zhuque Avenue ran south to the city’s southern gate. At about 150 m wide, it was more a ceremonial space than a street, and it divided the city into two administrative counties, east and west.

Each ward was surrounded by its own wall, with gates that were closed at night. Drums sounded at dusk and dawn to mark the curfew, and people found in the streets after dark could be punished. Inside the wards were houses, mansions, temples, shops and lanes.

The Tang added major palaces outside the original plan. The Daming Palace, begun in 634 on high ground north-east of the city, became the main imperial residence from the 660s, and Emperor Xuanzong later turned his former residence into the Xingqing Palace on the east side.

Markets and trade

Commerce was concentrated in two official markets, the East Market and the West Market, each occupying the space of about two wards. They opened at midday to the sound of drums and closed before sunset. Government officials checked weights and measures and supervised prices.

The East Market, close to aristocratic and official residences, was known for luxury goods. The West Market was the busier and more international of the two, where Sogdian, Persian and other Central Asian merchants sold horses, jewels, spices, textiles and wine. Taverns run by foreigners, sometimes staffed by Central Asian women, became a theme in Tang poetry.

A cosmopolitan city

Chang’an’s population is uncertain, but estimates for the 8th century commonly range from around 800,000 to more than a million people, including soldiers, officials, monks and large numbers of foreigners. Many of these were Sogdians, Iranian-speaking traders from the region of Samarkand and Bukhara, who dominated much of the overland trade.

Religious life was diverse. Besides Buddhist and Daoist monasteries, the city had Zoroastrian fire temples, Manichaean temples and a monastery of the Church of the East, whose famous stele, erected in 781, records the arrival of Christianity in China in 635. The monk Xuanzang returned to Chang’an in 645 with Buddhist scriptures from India, and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda was first built in 652 at the Da Ci’en Temple to store them.

Students and envoys came from Japan, the Korean kingdoms and elsewhere to study Chinese law, religion and literature. Japanese visitors, such as the scholar Abe no Nakamaro, who served as a Tang official, carried back knowledge of the city, which influenced the plans of Heijo-kyo (Nara) and later Heian-kyo (Kyoto).

Life in the Tang capital

For residents, the rhythm of life was set by the ward walls and the drums. Officials rode to dawn audiences at the palace through dark streets, and ordinary people did their shopping in the two markets or in the small shops that grew up inside the wards. The curfew was lifted only on special occasions, most famously during the Lantern Festival in the first lunar month, when crowds filled the streets at night to admire lamps.

The city was also the centre of Tang literary life. The poets Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei and Bai Juyi all lived or served there for periods, and many of their poems describe its avenues, palaces, temples and taverns. The Pingkang ward, close to the East Market, was known for its entertainers and courtesans, and was frequented by examination candidates and young officials.

Successful candidates in the imperial examinations, who came to the capital from all over the empire, celebrated with banquets at the Qujiang Pool, a landscaped lake in the south-east corner of the city. Aristocrats played polo, a sport introduced from Central Asia or Persia, on special grounds, and Emperor Xuanzong maintained troupes of musicians and dancers at court.

Not all of the enclosed area was crowded. Wards in the far south of the city remained thinly populated, with fields, gardens and temples, while the northern and central wards near the palaces and markets were densely built up.

Key people

• Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604): ordered the building of Daxing in 582.
• Yuwen Kai (555–612): engineer and architect credited with much of the city’s planning.
• Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649): began the Daming Palace and presided over the early growth of the Tang capital.
• Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756): whose long reign marked the height of the city’s wealth and culture.
• Xuanzang (c. 602–664): pilgrim monk whose translations made Chang’an a centre of Buddhist learning.

Decline and fall

The city’s fortunes turned with the An Lushan rebellion, which began in 755. Rebel forces captured Chang’an in 756, and Tibetan troops briefly occupied it in 763. The rebel leader Huang Chao took the city in 881, and fighting caused severe damage. In 904 the warlord Zhu Wen forced Emperor Zhaozong, the penultimate Tang ruler, to move to Luoyang and had the palaces and many houses dismantled, their timber floated down the Wei River.

After this, the vast city was abandoned. A much smaller town grew up around the old Imperial City, and the walls of present-day Xi’an, built under the Ming dynasty from the 1370s, enclose only a fraction of the Tang capital.

Timeline

• 582: Emperor Wen orders the building of Daxing.
• 583: The Sui court moves into the new capital.
• 618: The Tang dynasty makes the city its capital and renames it Chang’an.
• 634: Construction of the Daming Palace begins.
• 645: Xuanzang returns to Chang’an from India.
• 652: The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is first built.
• 756: Rebel forces of An Lushan capture the city.
• 763: Tibetan troops briefly occupy Chang’an.
• 881: Huang Chao’s rebels take the city.
• 904: Zhu Wen forces the court to Luoyang and dismantles the palaces.

Why it matters

Chang’an was the political and cultural heart of one of China’s greatest dynasties and a meeting point of East Asian and Central Asian civilisations. Its grid plan shaped city building across East Asia, and its memory still defines the identity of modern Xi’an.