The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Peking (also known as 'Beijing') where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In Chinese, the area is known as Dōng Jiāo Mín Xiàng (simplified Chinese: 东交民巷; traditional Chinese: 東交民巷), which is the name of the hutong (lane or small street) running through the area. It is located immediately to the east of Tiananmen Square.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the street was called the Dōng Jiāng Mĭ Xiàng (simplified Chinese: 东江米巷; traditional Chinese: 東江米巷), or "East River-rice Lane". It was the location of the tax office and customs authorities, because of its proximity to the river port by which rice and grains arrived in Beijing from the south. In the Ming Dynasty, a number of ministries moved into the area, including the Ministry of Rites, which was in charge of diplomatic matters. Several hostels were built for tributary missions from Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea and Burma.

Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1856-60, the Zongli Yamen was established as a foreign office of the Qing and the area around Dong Jiangmi Xiang was opened for a number of foreign legations.

The foreign legations were originally scattered close to the Qing imperial government in the southern part of Beijing's old inner city, just east of Tian'anmen Square and north of Qianmen and Chongwenmen. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Legation Quarter became the center of an international incident as it was besieged by Boxers for several months. After the siege had been broken by the Eight-Nation Alliance at the end of the Battle of Peking, the foreign powers obtained the right to station troops to protect their legations under the terms of the Boxer Protocol. The Legation Quarter was encircled by a wall and all Chinese residents in the area were ordered to move out. Sealed off from its immediate environment, the Legation Quarter became a city within the city exclusively for foreigners and many Chinese nationalists resented the Quarter as a symbol of foreign aggression.

Dongjiaomin Catholic Church, also known as St. Michael's Church, was built in 1902 on the site of a church destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion.

It was also a term of the Boxer Protocol that the street's name be changed to "Legation Street", with the Chinese name changed to Dong Jiaomin Xiang, a name which sounds similar to the original but can be interpreted as "Diplomatic Personnel Lane". Most of the Chinese ministries removed their offices from the street.