Beijing Subway | |||
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Overview | |||
Owner | Beijing Municipal Government | ||
Locale | Beijing & Langfang, Hebei | ||
Transit type | Rapid transit | ||
Number of lines | 29 | ||
Number of stations | 522[1] | ||
Daily ridership | 10.544 million (2018 daily avg.)[2] 13.7538 million (July 12, 2019, record)[3] | ||
Annual ridership | 3.8484 billion (2018)[2] | ||
Website | bjsubway.com mtr.bj.cn/en bjmoa.cn | ||
Operation | |||
Began operation | January 15, 1971 | ||
Operator(s) |
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Character | Underground, at grade and elevated | ||
Number of vehicles | 6,173 Revenue Railcars (2019)[4] | ||
Technical | |||
System length | 879 km (546 mi)[1] | ||
Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge | ||
Electrification |
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Beijing Subway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 北京地铁 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 北京地鐵 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Beijing Subway is the rapid transit system of Beijing Municipality that consists of 29 lines including 24 rapid transit lines, two airport rail links, one maglev line and two light rail tram lines, and 522 stations.[1] The rail network extends 879 km (546 mi)[1] across 12 urban and suburban districts of Beijing and into one district of Langfang in neighboring Hebei province. Between December 2023 and December 2024, the Beijing Subway became the world's longest metro system by route length, surpassing the Shanghai Metro. The system has since returned to being the world's second longest, with new lines being opened by the Shanghai Metro. With 3.8484 billion trips delivered in 2018 (10.544 million trips per day[2]) and single-day ridership record of 13.7538 million set on July 12, 2019,[3] the Beijing Subway was the world's busiest metro system in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Beijing Subway opened in 1971 and is the oldest metro system in mainland China and on the mainland of East Asia. Before the system began its rapid expansion in 2002, the subway had only two lines. The existing network still cannot adequately meet the city's mass transit needs. Beijing Subway's extensive expansion plans call for 998.5 km (620.4 mi)[5] of lines serving a projected 18.5 million trips every day when Phase 2 Construction Plan finished (around 2025).[6][7][8] The most recent expansion came into effect on December 15, 2024, with the openings of Line 3 and Line 12 and an extension of the Changping Line.