The Xiadu or Lower Capital of Yan () was one of the capitals of Yan during the

Warring States period The Warring States period in history of China, Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and ...

of ancient China. Xiadu may have been the largest city in the world from 400 to 300 BC, with an estimated peak population over 300,000. The remains of the city are located in Yi County,

Baoding Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2020 census, Baoding City had 11,544,036 inhabitants, of which 2,549,787 lived in the metropolitan area made of 4 out of 5 urban distri ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

Province. At 30 km², Xiadu is the largest excavated city from the Warring States period. Xiadu was surrounded by a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

and

rammed earth Rammed earth is a technique for construction, constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as soil, earth, chalk, Lime (material), lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently ...

wall; the base of the city walls measured 40 m at its widest. A portion of the old city wall, measuring up to 6.8 m high, still remains today. The ruins were first excavated in 1929 by an archaeological expedition from

Peking University Peking University (PKU) is a Public university, public Types of universities and colleges in China#By designated academic emphasis, university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the Peop ...

. The city was built in the

Taihang Mountains The Taihang Mountains () are a Chinese mountain range running down the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. The range extends over from north to south and has an average elevation of ; its principal peak is ...

, flanked by the Beiyi River to its north and by the Zhongyi River to its south. The difficult topography made it easy to defend from attack. The city was square, with a wall and

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

running north–south through its center, dividing the city into eastern and western halves. Large workshops for casting iron, casting bronze, minting coins, making weapons, making pottery and making bone objects were all found in the eastern city. The palace and royal cemeteries were also located in the eastern city. Two cemeteries were discovered; 13 and 10 tombs were found in each. All the tombs were covered by a pyramidal

tumulus A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

. A museum about the discovered objects was built in Beijing.西周燕都遗址博物馆
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References

* Allan, Sarah (ed), ''The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective'', {{ISBN, 0-300-09382-9 Archaeological sites in China Ancient Chinese capitals Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Hebei Yan (state) Baoding