Title: Names of Beijing
Content:  Marco Polo.) This city gradually absorbed the former settlements around the area. ; Beiping: Under the Ming Dynasty, the city itself was initially known as Beiping. The name reads literally as "Northern Peace", although its usage and connotations are closer to the idea of "Northern Plains". ; Shuntian: When the usurping Yongle Emperor established his base of Beiping as a secondary capital in 1403, he renamed the town Shuntian and the province surrounding it Beizhili to mimic the names of Yingtian (modern Nanjing) and the province of Zhili that surrounds it. ; Shuntian: ; Jingshi and Beijing: When the palace was finally 
Title: Names of Beijing
Content:  official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when the Communists conquered it during the Chinese Civil War and made it capital of their newly-founded People's Republic of China. As noted above, the pinyin romanization, "Beijing", was adopted for use within the country in 1958, and for international use in 1979. The American government continued to follow the Nationalist government in using "Beiping" until the late 1960s. The city has had many other names. The chronological list below sets out both the names of the city itself, and, in earlier times, the names of the administrative entities covering the city today.
Title: Beijing
Content:  Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had numerous other names. The name Beijing, which means "Northern Capital" (from the Chinese characters 北 for north and 京 for capital), was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing (the "Southern Capital"). The English spelling Beijing is based on the government's official romanization (adopted in the 1980s) of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. An older English spelling, Peking, is the postal romanization of the same two characters as they are pronounced in Chinese dialects spoken 
Title: History of Beijing
Content:  The Qing dynasty was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 but the capital of the newly founded Republic of China remained in Beijing as former Qing general Yuan Shikai Provtook control of the new government from revolutionaries in the south. Yuan and successors from his Beiyang Army ruled the Republic from Beijing until 1928 when Chinese Nationalists reunified the country through the Northern Expedition and moved the capital to Nanjing. Beijing was renamed Beiping. In 1937, a clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beiping triggered the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese occupiers created a collaborationist government in northern China and reverted the city's name to Beijing to serve as capital for the puppet regime. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the city returned to Chinese rule and was again renamed Beiping. During the subsequent civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, the city was peacefully transferred to Communist control in 1949 and renamed Beijing to become the capital of the People's Republic of China.
Title: Names of Beijing
Content:  in 1420, the Yongle Emperor moved the majority of his court north. The name Jingshi ceased to be used for Yingtian and was now employed for Shuntian. The area around Yingtian became known as Nanjing while Beijing was used to describe the area directly administered by the capital (generally modern Hebei). ; Jingshi: ; Jingdu: ) was declared the official name of Beijing by the Beiyang government in January 1918, and remained so until 1928. ; Beiping (then romanized as Peiping), in both its connotations, was restored as the name in 1928 by the Republic of China following its reconquest of Beijing 
Title: Yeheidie'erding
Content:  Yuan Dynasty in 1271, Kublai Khan renamed the city from Zhongdu to Khanbaliq (大都, "great capital", pinyin: Dàdū) in 1272, and it officially became the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, though some constructions in the city were not completed until 1293. It would last until 1368 when Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty and future Hongwu Emperor, made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital. The last Yuan emperor fled north to Shangdu and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming Dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Khanbaliq to the ground, and the city was renamed Beiping (北平, pinyin: Běipíng) by the Ming Dynasty in the same year. After the enthronement of Yongle Emperor, the third Ming emperor, the city was renamed to Beijing (北京, pinyin: Běijīng) and became the capital of the Ming Dynasty.
Title: Names of Beijing
Content:  Jingshi: ; Jingdu: ) was declared the official name of Beijing by the Beiyang government in January 1918, and remained so until 1928. ; Beiping (then romanized as Peiping), in both its connotations, was restored as the name in 1928 by the Republic of China following its reconquest of Beijing from the warlords during the Northern Expedition. The occupying Japanese in 1937 imposed the name Peking (Beijing), then with their surrender in 1945, the Nationalist Government restored "Beiping". In 1949, the official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when the Communists conquered it during the Chinese Civil War and made 
Title: Imperial City, Beijing
Content:   In the Yuan dynasty, Beijing was known as Dadu, and the Imperial City formed the centre of the city. In 1368, the Ming armies conquered Dadu, and changed its name to "Beiping" (the two characters meaning "north" and "peace" or "pacified"), with the capital moved to Nanjing. Because the Imperial City was untouched by battle, most of the Imperial City survived the war; however, in 1369, the Hongwu Emperor ordered that the Imperial City be demolished. In 1370, the Hongwu Emperor's fourth son Zhu Di was created Prince of Yan, with seat in Beiping. In 1379 he built a princely palace within the Yuan Imperial City. In 1399, Zhu Di launched a coup 
Title: Names of Beijing
Content:  the warlords during the Northern Expedition. The occupying Japanese in 1937 imposed the name Peking (Beijing), then with their surrender in 1945, the Nationalist Government restored "Beiping". In 1949, the official name again reverted to "Peking" (the Postal Romanization) when the Communists conquered it during the Chinese Civil War and made it capital of their newly-founded People's Republic of China. As noted above, the pinyin romanization, "Beijing", was adopted for use within the country in 1958, and for international use in 1979. The American government continued to follow the Nationalist government in using "Beiping" until the late 1960s. Shuntian: When the usurping 
Title: History of Beijing
Content:  For changes to the English spelling of the city's name, see Names of Beijing. For other administrative divisions called Beijing in Chinese history, see Beijing (disambiguation) and the History of the administrative divisions of China The city of Beijing has a long history dating back over 3,000 years. Prior to the unification of China by the First Emperor in 221 BC, Beijing had been for centuries the capital of the ancient states of Ji and Yan. It was a provincial center in the earliest unified empires of China, Qin and Han. The northern border of ancient China ran close to the present city of Beijing, and northern nomadic tribes frequently broke in from across the border. Thus, the area that was to become Beijing emerged as an important strategic and a local 

Question: what was the city of beijing previously known as?
Answer: Peking.