Books and Maps

Finding English-language maps and atlases in Běijīng
Part of A Better Guide to Beijing’s Practical A-Z

The Chinese were among the earliest known map-makers and by the 2nd century maps of most major settlements had been produced using principles set down four centuries earlier. The Jesuits brought maps of the world beyond the ken of the Míng and Qīng, and drew fresh and more accurate maps of China.

Nineteen hundred years later the Chinese have run out of steam, and there is little attention paid to accuracy. Indeed, the Party keeps tight control over cartography, forbidding unlicensed parties and foreigners in particular from making fresh and accurate maps of any part of China, as well as introducing deliberate errors and blank areas to hide away some of its own secrets. Find Běijīng on Google Maps (maps.google.com), and switch between map view and satellite view and you’ll see not only the discrepancies, but that locations jump to one side as you switch — a government-required obfuscation.

So any maps you see, whether in paper or electronic formats, and whether from domestic or foreign publishers, are based on the same limited, lazy, and sometimes deliberately inaccurate domestically produced sources. Nevertheless, so long as you don’t venture off the larger hútòng (alleys) maps and street atlases are still useful. Some are bilingual, but these are usually the least detailed and least accurate ones, and indeed any map marked ‘tourist’ is likely even to have common street names incorrect. Strolling vendors around popular sites sell single-sheet Chinese maps for around ¥5, and these can also be found at major bookshops and at news kiosks.

Bookshops also have street atlases in various sizes and which have considerably more detail, and although usually only in Chinese are still usable. They all open with a two-page map of the city divided into a grid with page numbers linking to the larger maps. In all cases the main purpose is to locate your hotel and circle that, then have an English-speaker at reception circle the characters for your various destinations which may be also be compared with the characters given throughout this book.

Turn left immediately upon entering the Wángfǔ Jǐng Bookstore (m Wángfǔ Jǐng, exit B, just north of Oriental Plaza) to find a large selection of maps and street atlases not only for Běijīng but the whole of China. The Běijīng Books Building (m Xī Dān, exit C) is also well supplied.

For maps with all the sights and facilities mentioned in this book clearly marked, visit maps.google.com/datasinica [to come] and print out sections at any size you find convenient or download them to live on any computing device as you travel. Free wi-fi Internet access is widely available in Běijīng in both hotels and cafés, and maps may be loaded into your phone or tablet device before setting off for the day, avoiding the need for a local SIM card or data roaming. But note that access to Google maps from China became at best spotty in 2015 so you should download before leaving home or use a VPN when in China. See Internet and Other Digital Resources. Downloadable and on-line maps are far more practical and contain far more detail than could be squeezed into any printed on these pages.

There is no background reading on Běijīng worth obtaining in Běijīng, but there are coffee-table books of both historic and new photography which are fairly priced reminders of Běijīng to take home as long as the sometimes bilingual text is ignored. The Foreign Languages Bookstore in Wángfǔ Jǐng (m Wángfǔ Jǐng and walk north) usually has a wide variety on the ground floor. This is also the place to look for English-language novels, as is the branch of the Hong Kong chain Page One in Sān Lǐ Tún (m Tuánjié Hú, walk west and turn north into Sān Lǐ Tún Lù).

For full details of bookshop locations see Shopping.

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