Beijing is a really interesting city to talk about when it comes to cars. The city’s reputation for bad air pollution is almost always linked to the sheer vast number of cars on the road. Stuck in the middle of traffic in Beijing everyday, you can’t help but to begin to notice the little intricacies and problems related to cars, from the traffic, air, socioeconomic class divide represented by the cars and the drivers behind the wheel and more. This brings us to the different types of vehicle license plates we see in Beijing, and more about that will be introduced in detail below.
The types of plates we see in Beijing and the rest of China are formatted in a similar way, beginning with the one-character provincial abbreviation (in Beijing it is Jing 京) and followed by a letter and five numbers. However, this 1992 standard has evolved into adopting other combinations as the number of registered cars continues to grow. Certain provinces have changed this combination, to add more letters in certain places. Next, are the color of the license plates, most notably yellow and blue. Yellow plates are issued to large vehicles, like trucks and buses, as well as motorcycles. Blue plates are the most common, issued for small passenger cars. In the past, black plates were issued to vehicles owned by foreigners, but was later “deemed discriminatory” and are now issued standard looking blue plates since October 2007. However, foreign owned plates do carry a different plate number sequence.
In addition to the common types of license plates mentioned above, the police, armed police force and military carry unique license plates. The plates have a white background with red and black text. Police plates begin with 警 jing (meaning police) and are colored red, followed by the geographical location’s character and digits. You will notice these on police cars, including those belonging to traffic police. The Chinese People’s Armed Police Force plates begin with the letters WJ, the pinyin abbreviation for 武警 (Wu Jing), followed by the area prefixes and digits. The other branches of the military have their vehicle plates prefixed with the letters representing their division, like 海 (Hai for the Navy) and 空 (Kong for the Air Force). Vehicles with government or military plates are not subject to the Road Traffic Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China, meaning they may run red lights, drive in the wrong direction, and just break all traffic laws. They’re also exempt from paying road tolls and adhering to parking regulations.
Motorcycles plates follow the same plate format as cars, but are much smaller, with two lines of information on a yellow background. Embassy vehicles have their own plate, all-black, with the character 使 (Guan, an abbreviation for embassy) in red followed by six white numbers for embassies used only in Beijing. For consulates, 领 (Ling, an abbreviation for consulate) in red is followed by six white numbers.
Beijing is its own municipality, so that’s why 京 (Jing) is used, while the surrounding areas in Hebei province have plates beginning with 冀 (Ji). All Beijing taxis have their license plates beginning with 京B, another way to differentiate a real cab from an illegal one.
