Beijing Planetarium

The Beijing Planetarium was built in 1957 which is the first of its kind in China. It is located diagonally opposite the Beijing Zoo in the northwestern part of the city and is composed of a planetarium, an exhibition hall, a lecture hall and an astronomical observatory.

The planetarium, with its cupola measuring 25 meters in diameter, is the main focus of interest of the entire complex. At regular intervals, 45-minute presentations take the visitor on a trip through the heavens made possible by projectors installed in the center of the hall which faithfully reproduce an image of the starry sky on the inside of the cupola.

Beijing Planetarium contains three main parts: old facility of Beijing Planetarium, new facility of Beijing Planetarium and Beijing ancient observatory. The new facility of Beijing Planetarium which is adjoin to the existing old facility building, began to built in 2001 and was finished in 2004 with construction area of 20000 sq. m. The new facility is made up of several exciting parts :：Digital universal theater, 3D theater, 4D theater, exhibition hall, solar observatory, commonalty observatory, astronomical classroom etc.