315 City

Jonathan Dugdale is a researcher and historian at the University of Birmingham, specialising in Chinese history. He discusses with ShaoLan how his research has taken him to different cities around China, including Xi’An, where the famous terracotta warriors are still being excavated. He also shares some interesting historical knowledge, including how in ancient China it was common to have more than one capital city, indeed, with the Liao dynasty having five of them! ShaoLan teaches some extra variations on city descriptions including how to say “big city” as well as teaching the names for some famous modern cities around the world.

The Chinese word for city is 城市. The first character 城 means “town,” the second character 市 means “market” and shows the boundary where people could trade. Together, 城市 means “city.”