In the fifth year of his reign, the Duke of Zhou started to build the capital city Luoyi, modern Luoyang, and his idea of “the center of the world” has been gradually developed and modified. He both chose the capital location and made plans for the layout. This great city was established in only one year under his supervision.  

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The ancient capital of Luoyang provides a window through which scholars can glimpse how ancient Chinese founded their capital cities.

The principle of “the center of the world (China)” has been used since the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and refers not only to the idea that China was at the center of the world, but also that the capital should be at the center of the country.

Before and after the construction of Luoyi (modern Luoyang), the Duke of Zhou not only inherited his predecessors’ cosmology, experience in founding capitals and cultural traditions, but also developed and modified the principle of “the center of the world.”

The principle contains the regional idea of building the capital in the center of the country, the idea of a political center being convenient for ruling all parts of the kingdom, and the ideas of economic centralization and a cultural center for spreading indoctrination.

The Duke of Zhou created the concept of “the center of the world” and endowed it with definite geographical and political meanings.

He was always regarded as a political role model by Confucianism and this made his ideas on planning a capital popular with the following generations. This is a key reason why many dynasties chose Luoyang as their capital. It remained a popular choice throughout the Western and Eastern Han dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties.

This principle for founding a capital also provided a number of institutional practices that were passed down through the ages.

Although the territory and the concept of “the world” varied and the patterns of capital cities constantly changed, this principle has affected the construction of ancient China’s capital cities in terms of ideology and institutions.

Moreover, it directly influenced the spatial planning layout of ancient capital cities. Its derivative systems of both “selecting the center of the capital to build up the palace” and “choosing the central axis of the palace for emperors and kings’ throne” offered a planning guideline of the palace location for rulers in every dynasty.