As the capital of the People's Republic of China, Beijing has has 10 districts and 8 counties accommodating a population of over 12 million with half of them 6 million living in the city proper. The birth rate is 0.896% , the mortality rate is 0.576%, and the density of population in the urban area is 27,666 people per square kilometer. People from all the 56 nationalities of China live in Beijing. The people of minority nationalities account for 3.8% of the total population, among which Hui, Manchu and Mongolia nationalities predominate. Major religious beliefs of the residents of Beijing are Buddhism, Taoism, Islamism, Catholicism and Christianity. The first three have exerted greater influence on the history, culture and art of Beijing. There are 90 places of worships, and adherents of different religions amount to 75,000.

In the past five decades, public transportation developed rapidly. In 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded and Beijing was settled as the capital, there were only 5 buses and 49 tramcars for a city of 2 million people. But now there are some 12,000 buses, two subway lines (with another one is under construction), five ring highways and numerous of flyovers. More and more families have their own cars, and incredible number of apartment buildings have been built or under the construction. There are nearly 100 institutions of higher learning (including branch schools), over 800 middle schools and about 2,800 primary schools in Beijing with a total enrollment of over 2 million. In medical and health care, the city has more than 629 hospitals, 65,600 sick beds, with over 116,200 medical workers.

Beijing is centered around the Forbidden City and Tianan'men Square, and as a result of the capitals of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, Beijing enjoys a lot of historical relics and buildings, such as the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, etc. Being the political and cultural center of China, Beijing is moving its factories to the suburbs or other neighboring cities for the sake of environment, and the government has determined as Beijing as a cultural, tourist and commercial city instead of an industrial city.

There is of course the famous Beijing-duck, also imperial dishes, Mongolian hot-pot and barbecue, Korean pickled vegetables and barbecue, McDonald's, Japanese cooking and all kinds of snacks you can imagine or can never imagine from all over China and the world. Beijing's hotels grow fast in recent years both in number and in service quality. There are Beijing Hotel, Palace Tower, the Sheratons, several Shangri-Las, the classiest, the New Worlds, Hilton, and Holiday Inns.