page_title: Beijing Legation Quarter
section_title: The Boxer Rebellion
hierarchical_section_title: Beijing Legation Quarter / The Boxer Rebellion
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard showing Legation Street, Peking. The building on the left, which housed the Yokohama Specie Bank, is still standing. On the right stood the Grand Hôtel des Wagons-Lits, also known as the Six Nations Hotel.中文: 北京东交民巷，中华民国明信片
context_page_description: The Beijing Legation Quarter was the area in Beijing, China where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In the Chinese language, the area is known as Dong Jiaomin Xiang, which is the name of the hutong through the area. It is located in the Dongcheng District, immediately to the east of Tiananmen Square. The city of Beijing was commonly called Peking by Europeans and Americans until the 1950s.
  The Legation Quarter was the location of the 55-day siege of the International Legations, which took place during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. After the Boxer Rebellion, the Legation Quarter was under the jurisdiction of foreign countries with diplomatic legations in the quarter. The foreign residents were exempt from Chinese law. The Legation Quarter attracted many diplomats, soldiers, scholars, artists, tourists, and Sinophiles. World War II effectively ended the special status of the Legation Quarter, and with the Great Leap Forward and other events in communist China most of the European-style buildings of the Legation Quarter were destroyed.
context_section_description: During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Legation Quarter was besieged by Boxers and the Qing army for 55 days.  The Siege of the Legations was lifted on August 14 by a multi-national army, the Eight-Nation Alliance, which marched to Beijing from the coast and defeated the Chinese army in a series of battles, including the Battle of Peking.  Of the 900 foreign nationals, including 400 soldiers, who took refuge in the Legation Quarter, 55 soldiers and 13 civilians were killed. Beijing was occupied for more than one year by the foreign armies. 
  The Boxer Protocol of 1901 officially ended the Boxer Rebellion.  China was forced to pay a large indemnity to the foreign powers.  Article VII of the Protocol said that "the quarter occupied by the
  legations shall be considered as one specially reserved for their use and placed under their exclusive control, in which Chinese shall not have the right to reside and which may be made defensible." The Protocol also established the exact boundaries of the Legation Quarter.
  Most of the buildings, Chinese and foreign-owned, in the Legation Quarter were damaged or destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion.  The area was quickly rebuilt and became more European.  In 1902, legations had been rebuilt and expanded, Legation Street had been paved, and the Peking-Mukden Railway from Tianjin had been extended to the Chien (Zhengyang) gate, just across the Tartar Wall from the Legation Quarter. Foreign soldiers patrolled the streets of the Legation Quarter, and Chinese houses and property had been expropriated or purchased.  A wall had been constructed around the Legation Quarter and outside the wall a grassy area, a glacis, gave the soldiers a field of visibility to warn them of advancing trouble—and also isolating them from the Chinese.
caption: Legation Street. Yokohama Specie Bank on the left and the Grand Hotel des Wagons-Lits on the right. Probably 1920s or 1930s.
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