Yongdingmen Gate

Located at the southernmost end of the central axis of Beijing, it is often said that there are "nine inside and seven outside and four imperial cities " with Yongdingmen being one of the " seven outside ".
Yongdingmen Gate was built in the thirty-second year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1553), which is more than 130 years later than Zhengyangmen Gate (built in 1419), which is also located on the central axis. This is because Yongdingmen is the gate of the outer city, and Beijing City had no outer city at the beginning of its construction during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. In order to defend against the threat of the northern nomads, the outer city walls of Beijing began to be built during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the commerce in the south of Beijing was highly developed, and the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Mountains and Rivers (Xiannong Temple) were all in the south of the city, so the Ming government decided to build the outer city wall and city gate in the south first. In the 43rd year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1564), the barbican of Yongdingmen was built.
In 1950, the barbican was demolished giving way to the Beijing Beltway. In 1957, the building and watchtower were removed due to the need for urban traffic development. In 2004, in order to realize the strategic planning of "New Beijing, New Olympics", the Yongdingmen Gate was rebuilt in the style of Qianlong's reign and based on the surveying and mapping data of the Gate in the early 20th century.\The Yongdingmen Gate is the main gate of the southern wall of Beijing's outer city and the southern starting point of the central axis of Beijing. Among the many city gates in the outer city, the Yongdingmen is the largest and its construction technology is the most exquisite.