Ancient Capitals

Nanjing: The Southern Capital (南京)

✍️ by xiaoyu luo 🗓️ Updated Jul 29, 2026 Last updated: July 2026 · Reading time: 9 min

Perched on the southern bank of the lower Yangtze River, where the great waterway broadens into its final journey toward the sea, stands Nanjing (南京, nán jīng) — the "Southern Capital." For more than two millennia, this city has been the political, cultural, and literary heart of southern China. It served as the capital of six major dynasties, was the first seat of the Ming empire, and endured some of the most tragic events of the twentieth century. Its name, like Chang'an's, is a geographic claim — the southern counterpart to Beijing — and its history is a mirror of China's long and turbulent relationship between north and south.

The Six Dynasties: Nanjing as a Refuge

Nanjing's rise as a capital began in the turmoil that followed the fall of the Han dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE), the kingdom of Wu made it their capital, calling it Jianye (建业, jiàn yè, "establishing an enterprise"). After the reunification under the Western Jin collapsed, the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420 CE) fled south and established Jiankang (建康, jiàn kāng) — the name by which Nanjing was known for most of its early history — as the legitimate successor to the fallen northern capitals. This pattern would repeat for centuries: when the north fell to foreign invaders — the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Jurchen — the Chinese court would retreat south and rebuild at Nanjing.

The term "Six Dynasties" (六朝, liù cháo) — Wu, Eastern Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, and Chen — refers to the six regimes that ruled from Nanjing between 229 and 589 CE. This period was politically fractured but culturally dazzling. Nanjing became the center of Chinese poetry, painting, calligraphy, and Buddhist scholarship while the north was dominated by non-Chinese regimes. The great calligrapher Wang Xizhi (王羲之), the painter Gu Kaizhi (顾恺之), and the literary critic Liu Xie (刘勰), author of the Wenxin Diaolong (文心雕龙, "The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons"), all worked in Nanjing. The city was not merely a political capital but the very engine of Chinese cultural continuity during a fragmented age.

The most poignant literary echo of this era is the poem "Visiting the Ancient Capital" by the Tang poet Liu Yuxi (刘禹锡), who walked through the ruined streets of Nanjing centuries later and found only weeds and wild birds: "The hills are still the same, the old capital empty; / The tide of the Qinhuai River flows like yesterday's grief." The Six Dynasties left behind palaces and temples that crumbled, but they established Nanjing's identity as a place where memory itself is a kind of architecture.

The Ming Dynasty: A Capital Reborn

Nanjing's greatest era began in 1368, when Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋), the Hongwu Emperor, drove the Mongols out of China and established the Ming dynasty. He chose Nanjing as his capital — the first time the entire Chinese empire had been ruled from the south — and embarked on a building campaign that transformed the city. His first project was the great city wall (南京城墙, nán jīng chéng qiáng), a massive circuit of stone and brick that still stands as the longest surviving city wall in the world. Stretching some 35 kilometers, it was built with extraordinary precision: each brick was stamped with the name of its kiln and the supervisor responsible, a system of quality control that kept the wall intact for over six centuries.

Within the walls, the Hongwu Emperor built his imperial palace (明故宫, míng gù gōng), a vast complex that rivaled the Forbidden Palace that would later be built in Beijing. He also constructed the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (明孝陵, míng xiào líng) at the foot of Purple Mountain, a monumental tomb guarded by a spirit way of stone animals and warriors that remains one of China's finest imperial burial sites. The city also became the site of the world's largest examination hall (江南贡院, jiāng nán gòng yuàn), where as many as 20,000 candidates gathered every three years to take the civil service examinations — the gateway to a career in imperial government.

When the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing in 1420, Nanjing did not decline. It was designated the "Southern Capital" and retained a complete set of government ministries, serving as the empire's secondary administrative center. Economically, it flourished as the hub of the Jiangnan region, China's richest agricultural and commercial zone. The Ming dynasty's great naval expeditions under Zheng He — a Muslim eunuch admiral — sailed from Nanjing's shipyards, and the city's Confucius Temple area became the social and cultural heart of southern China, a district of teahouses, bookshops, and theaters that thrived for centuries.

Landmarks and Cultural Legacy

No city in China is more associated with the intellectual life of the nation. The Confucius Temple (夫子庙, fū zǐ miào), first built in the Song dynasty, became the center of the southern examination system; its surrounding streets are still the liveliest commercial district in Nanjing. Purple Mountain (紫金山, zǐ jīn shān) holds not only the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum but also the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (中山陵, zhōng shān líng), the final resting place of the founding father of the Republic of China. The Xuanwu Lake (玄武湖, xuán wǔ hú), once the imperial garden of the Six Dynasties, is now a public park where the city's residents practice tai chi at dawn.

Culturally, Nanjing gave China the Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), the first systematic dictionary of Chinese characters, compiled by Xu Shen in the Eastern Han dynasty while he was a scholar in the region. It produced the Wenxuan (文选, "Selections of Refined Literature"), the first comprehensive anthology of Chinese literature, compiled by Prince Xiao Tong of the Liang dynasty. The Yongle Dadian (永乐大典), the largest encyclopedia in pre-modern world history at 22,877 volumes, was compiled in Nanjing by order of the Yongle Emperor. And in the twentieth century, Nanjing University (南京大学) and the former National Central University made the city a center of modern Chinese scholarship.

Modern Nanjing: Between Memory and Renewal

The twentieth century brought Nanjing its darkest chapter. In 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city fell to Japanese forces and suffered the Nanking Massacre (南京大屠杀, nán jīng dà tú shā), in which hundreds of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war were killed over six weeks. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆) stands today as a solemn reminder of this atrocity, one of the most visited museums in China and a site of global historical importance.

Despite this tragedy, Nanjing has rebuilt itself as a vibrant modern city that remains deeply connected to its past. Its tree-lined boulevards — planted when Nanjing was the capital of the Republic of China (1927–1937) — give the city a distinctive character among Chinese metropolises. The Qinhuai River (秦淮河, qín huái hé), once the pleasure district of the Six Dynasties, is again a lantern-lit destination for evening boat rides. The old city wall, the Ming palaces, the mausoleums on Purple Mountain, and the Confucius Temple continue to draw visitors who come to walk through two thousand years of Chinese history in a single day. Nanjing is a city that has been burned, sacked, and rebuilt so many times that its resilience has become its true identity — a Southern Capital that has never surrendered its claim to be the cultural conscience of China.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why has Nanjing been the capital of so many dynasties?

A: Nanjing's location on the southern bank of the lower Yangtze River, surrounded by mountains and waterways, made it naturally defensible and economically rich. The Yangtze served as a moat, the surrounding hills as walls, and the fertile Jiangnan plain as a granary. Southern dynasties from the Six Dynasties period onward chose Nanjing as a bastion against northern invaders, and its prestige as a cultural capital persisted even when the political center moved north.

Q: What is the Ming city wall of Nanjing?

A: The Nanjing city wall is the longest surviving city wall in the world, stretching approximately 35 kilometers around the old city. Built by the Ming Hongwu Emperor between 1368 and 1393, it was constructed with massive stone blocks and a core of rammed earth, then faced with brick. The wall was designed in an irregular shape that followed the natural contours of the land, incorporating lakes and hills as defensive features.

Q: What happened in Nanjing during the Ming dynasty?

A: Nanjing was the first capital of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) under the Hongwu Emperor, who built his palace, the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, and the great city wall. After the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing in 1420, Nanjing remained the "Southern Capital" and a secondary capital with a full set of government ministries. It continued to be the empire's cultural and economic center, especially for the civil service examination system.

Q: Why is Nanjing called the "City of Literature"?

A: Nanjing has been China's literary heart for nearly two thousand years. The Confucius Temple area (夫子庙, fū zǐ miào) housed the imperial examination center for southern China. The city produced the earliest Chinese dictionary (Shuowen Jiezi), the first comprehensive literary anthology (Wenxuan), and was home to the great Ming encyclopedia Yongle Dadian. In the 20th century, Nanjing University continued this tradition as a center of scholarship and intellectual exchange.

Key Terms

南京

nán jīng — the Southern Capital

六朝

liù cháo — the Six Dynasties period

明孝陵

míng xiào líng — the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum

夫子庙

fū zǐ miào — the Confucius Temple

南京大屠杀

nán jīng dà tú shā — the Nanking Massacre

Fun Facts

Nanjing's city wall bricks were stamped with the kiln name and supervisor's signature — an early form of quality control that kept the wall intact for over 600 years.
The Yongle Dadian, compiled in Nanjing, was so large (22,877 volumes) that only a handful of complete sets were ever printed, and most were lost in fires and wars — only about 400 volumes survive today.
Nanjing's plane trees (悬铃木, xuán líng mù) that line the boulevards were planted during the Republic of China era (1927–1937) and have become the city's most recognizable natural feature.