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Xi'an and Tang Dynasty
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Chang An (Now called Xian) was a large-scale metropolis during the Tang Dynasty£¨618-907 A.D.£©.The city was designed in the shape of a near perfect square comprised of the outer city, the imperial city, and the palace. Its streets were arranged in a grid pattern with 14 running in a north-south direction and 11 running from east to west.
This city is not only a symbol of the very feudalistic imperial authority of a ncient China but also a model of Chinese Fang construction (rectangular compounds). Furthermore, its establishment unexpectedly has a close relation with the six sloping fields on the Longshou (head of dragon) plateau.
Perfect landform created a glorious city: a match made in heaven
Tang Chang An City - the Model City
Chang An, originally established in the third year under the reign of Emperor Sui Wendi (581-604 A.D), is the grandest capital in China history. To demonstrate unification and long-term peace, the city was designed based on the cosmological principles of favorable timing and geographical and human conditions.
The outermost circle of the city wall, stretching 9,721 meters from east to west and 8651.7 meters from north to south, and covering 84 square kilometers, made it the largest city in ancient China.
Moreover, it was seven times the size of its contemporary Byzantium Empire's capital city.
In 581, Emperor Sui Wendi established the Sui Dynasty (581-618 A.D.), taking the Western Han Dynasty's (206 B.C.-8 A.D.) Chang An City, located 5 kilometers northwest to today Xian City of Shaanxi Province, as the capital. However, the city had by that time experienced 800 years of wind and rain, rendering it into a dilapidated condition. So Emperor Sui chose a new site to build his own capital -- Daxing City.
 Also, Chang An was geographically located on a north-south axis. From the palace in the north the emperor would face south when seated in his hall of audience, thereby symbolically occupying the position of the pole star as the pivot of the universe. All four cardinal directions were associated with specific animals, elements, and colors. All important cities, tombs, temples, residences, and so forth, faced south in line with fundamental concepts of geomancy which dictated that one back should always be towards the north so as to ward off harmful and too powerful Yin influences. One therefore faced the south from which healthy Yang emanations could be received.
But this kind of careful design also had some regrettable flaws. Soon after the construction of the Tai Ji Palace (Da Xing Palace in the Sui Dynasty), the emperor quickly replaced it with the Da Ming Palace. It is because Tai Ji was located in a rather lower terrain, meaning that in hot summer people in the palace would feel terribly hot. So, from for the rest of the Qin Dynasty and all of the Tang Dynasty, every summer, rulers would move to a summer palace to avoid the heat.
For example, in summer, the emperor Tang Tai Zong (627-650 A.D.) went to the Jiu Cheng Palace in the Wei Bei plateau for his summer vacation, but every time he invited his father to go with him, his father always refused, saying that Emperor Sui Wendi died in the Jiu Cheng Palace.
Showing emperor Tang Tai Zong belief in geomancy, he accepted his ministers advice to build a summer palace in the Chang'an city. The highland at the Longshou plateau was considered as the proper place to build the new palace -- the Da Ming Palace. When Tang Tai Zong died, his successor, emperor Tang Gao Zong, continued with the project.
According to historical records, there were two reasons compelling Tang Gao Zong and his wife Wu Zetian (625-705 A.D., China's only female emperor) to reconstruct the Da Ming Palace. One was because of the wet weather, and the other was that Wu Zetian often dreamed of becoming Tang Gao Zong's first wife, who she had murdered, so she was scared to live in the old palace.
In fact, the real reason for the palace reconstruction was perhaps that Emperor Tang Gao Zong wanted to build a palace that could well reflect the imperial power in the Tang Dynasty.
After the establishment of Han Yuan Dian, the main hall in the Da Ming Palace, Tang Gao Zong began to hold court there, and for the next 200 years, Da Ming served as the court.
Since 1957, many archaeology  workers have carried on a long-term archaeology exploration in the ruins of the Da Ming Palace, and have verified its scope and the layout. The area of the palace is 3.2 square kilometers, which is 4.5 times that of Beijing's Forbidden City.
With the Scarlet Bird Street as the axis, the Chang'an city was divided into two parts. The east street belonged to Wan Nian County, and the west street belonged to Chang'an County. The entire city altogether had 108 Fang. But because of the topographic effect, the weather in the east street was much better than in the west. Therefore more residents built houses on the east street.
The Ling Gan Temple (the predecessor of the Tang Dynasty famous Qing Long Temple) in the Sui Dynasty was on the peak of the Le You plateau, where one could get a bird's eye view of Chang'an City.
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