Deskripsi

The ancient capital Chang’an, which is today’s Xi’an City, Shanxi Province, was founded as a capital in more than ten dynasties in the Chinese history. Among them, Chang’an in the Western Han Dynasty (202B.C.-8A.D.) and Chang’an in the Tang Dynasty (618-907A.D.) were well-developed international metropolises in the world at that time, both witnessing the golden age of ancient Chi-nese history.
However, Chang’an in the Western Han Dynasty and that in the Tang Dynasty were actually not the same capital, as the latter only occupied the southeast part of the for-mer, what’s the reason behind this?
The answer is that from the Western Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty (581-618A.D.), Chang’an had been there for 800 years, and it suffered from serious groundwater pollution. Then Emperor Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty chose a clean place in the southeast of Chang’an of the Han Dynasty and built the Daxing City.
Later, the Sui Dynasty fell, and Li Yuan founded the Tang Dynasty, renamed Daxing City as Chang’an City, and established the capital here.