Chang'an

Chang'an was the capital of China for centuries and one of the most important eastern terminals of the Silk Road. The original city stood about five kilometres north-west of present-day Xi'an in Shaanxi province and served first as the seat of the Western Han dynasty (from 202 BCE), then of the short-lived Xin, the Sui, and finally the Tang dynasty. Under the Tang emperors Chang'an reached over a million inhabitants in the 8th century, probably making it the largest city in the world; its strict grid plan, the great Mingde Gate and the two-square-kilometre Daming Palace complex were models for the early Japanese capitals of Nara and Heian-kyo (Kyoto). The Ming dynasty renamed it Xi'an; the archaeological remains of the Tang palaces are open to the public today as the Daming Palace Park.