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Beijing is one of the very few cities to possess multiple ring roads (or beltways). Among the rarest seen anywhere in a major city in the world is Beijing's 2nd Ring Road, which is extremely central to Tian'anmen, the centre of Beijing.
Oddly enough, there is the lack of a 1st Ring Road. This may have referred to a rectangle of roads around the intersections at Dongdan, Xidan, Dongsi, and Xisi; it may also be a mapmaker's fiction, and nonexistent. Maps in Beijing do not actually show the 1st Ring Road as such; only very few maps give a faint yellow highlight of a possible variant of it.
Actually Beijing's first ring road, the 2nd Ring Road was built in the 1980s and expanded in the 1990s. It now forms a rectangular loop around central Beijing. Its four sections begin at Xizhimen, Dongzhimen, Caihuying and Zuo'anmen .
The 2nd Ring Road passes through very central parts of Beijing, and is close to the Beijing Railway Station. Prices of real estate inside the ring road are considerably higher than other parts of town (for very obvious reasons!).
The 2nd Ring Road of today is part of an extended ring road which takes the southern route through Zuo'anmen and Caihuying instead of Qianmen Road, just south of Tian'anmen.
The 3rd Ring Road was built in the 1980s and completed in the 1990s. It also is central, as it passes through Beijing's CBD and diplomatic communities. It is the ring road closest to the city to be directly interlinked with expressways -- the Airport Expressway, the Jingcheng Expressway (link under construction), the Badaling Expressway, the Jingshi ExpresswayThe Jingshi Expressway (, Hanyu Pinyin: Jingshi Gosu Gonglu; or Jingshi Freeway, as it was formerly known) is an expressway in China which links Beijing to the Shijiazhuang. 270 km in length. Its road numbering is G030 . It forms part of the Jingzhu Expre, the Jingkai ExpresswayThe Jingkai Expressway (, Hanyu Pinyin: Jingki Gosu Gonglu) is an expressway in China which links Beijing to Kaifeng. At present, it is approximately 40 km in length in the Beijing section. Opened just after the turn of the century, the relatively new exp, and the Jingjintang ExpresswayOpened in September of 1993, the Jingjintang expressway also known simply as the Jingtang expressway, links Beijing via central Tianjin to the Tanggu District in eastern Tianjin. 143 kilometres in length, it crosses the jurisidictions of Beijing and Tianj.
The northwestern 4th Ring Road (July 2004 image)
The 4th Ring Road was completed in 2001. It connects the less central parts of Beijing and navigates through Zhongguancun technology hub, western Beijing, Fengtai district , and eastern Beijing. The Jingshen Expressway and the Jingtong Expressway (as of Dawangqiao) begin from the 4th Ring Road.
The 4th Ring Road, along with other ring roads, now have a few locations where "fake" police lights (red and blue in colour) light up at night. Drivers are too easily fooled into thinking that the police is out in force. Indirectly, this forces drivers to slow down, while also scaring the daylights out of drivers. The "fake" lights are always after a speed trap. The best way to avoid falling into this trap altogether is to drive according to the speed limits -- not faster, not slower.