Tiananmen Square
Vast public plaza built in the seventeenth century, watched over by a gate bearing a giant portrait.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Tiananmen Square in Beijing centers on June 5, 1989, the morning after a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, when photographer Jeff Widener stood on a hotel balcony above the square with his camera. Below him, a line of tanks began moving down the avenue, and an ordinary man in a white shirt, carrying shopping bags, stepped out into their path. You'll also hear about the square's own long history, built in 1651 and expanded fourfold in the 1950s. Look north toward the gate bearing Mao's portrait as you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Great Hall of the People
Vast socialist-realist state hall with a ten-thousand-seat auditorium, raised in just ten months for a national anniversary.
Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
Granite hall guarding an embalmed leader's body in a crystal coffin lowered underground each night.
National Art Museum of China
Pavilion museum with yellow-tiled roofs, site of the nineteen seventy-nine Stars art protest.
Zhengyangmen
Towering Ming-era city gate, site of a desperate last cavalry stand in nineteen hundred.
Marco Polo Bridge
Granite arch bridge over a river, lined with hundreds of centuries-old carved stone lions.
Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall
Urban museum in a converted early nineteen-hundreds railway station, home to a vast miniature city model.