Prince Regent Dorgon, who led the Manchus south of the Great Wall and seized Beijing in 1644.

Dorgon preserved trappings of imperial power including the bureaucracy, rituals and palaces, and moved the Qing capital to Beijing. In so doing, he positioned the Qing as the political heir to the Ming and legitimate ruler of China. Above, Qing imperial procession at the Forbidden City depicted in an 18th century Jesuit painting.UNESCO World Heritage Site of Beijing

Longevity Hill (left) and Suzhou Street (right) of the Summer Palace.On May 3, 1644, the Manchus seized Beijing in the name of freeing the city from the bandit Li Zicheng. Dorgon held a state funeral for Ming Emperor Chongzhen and reappointed many Ming officials. In October, he moved the boy emperor Shunzhi from the old capital Shenyang into the Forbidden City and made Beijing the new seat of the Qing Dynasty. In the following decades, the Manchus would conquer the rest of the country and ruled China for nearly three centuries from the city. During this era, Beijing was also known as Jingshi which corresponds with the Manchu name Gemun Hecen.

The Qing largely retained the physical configuration of Beijing inside the city walls. Each of the Eight Manchu Banners was assigned to guard and live near the eight gates of the Inner City.[59] Outside the city, the Qing Court seized large tracts of land for Manchu noble estates.[59] Northwest of the city, Qing emperors built several large palatial gardens. In 1684, Kangxi Emperor built the Shangchun Garden on the site of the Ming Dynasty's Qinghua (or Tsinghua) Garden. In the early 18th century, he began building the Yuanmingyuan, also known as the "Old Summer Palace", which the Qianlong Emperor expanded with European Baroque-style garden pavilions. In 1750, Qianlong built the Yiheyuan, commonly referred to as the "Summer Palace". The two summer palaces represent both the culmination of Qing imperial splendor and its decline. Both were ransacked and razed by invading Western powers in the late Qing.