Beijing Subway

Beijing Subway
Logo of Beijing Subway
A line 13 train leaving Huoying station
Overview
Native name
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	北京地铁
Traditional Chinese	北京地鐵
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Běijīng Dìtiě
Owner	Beijing Municipal Government
Locale	Beijing & Langfang, Hebei
Transit type	Rapid transit
Number of lines	27
Number of stations	490[1]
Daily ridership	10.544 million (2018 daily avg.)[2] 13.7538 million (12 July 2019 record)[3]
Annual ridership	3.8484 billion (2018)[2]
Website	bjsubway.com mtr.bj.cn bjmoa.cn
Operation
Began operation	15 January 1971; 53 years ago (1971-01-15)
Operator(s)	Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Corp., Ltd. Beijing MTR Corp., Ltd. Beijing Metro Operation Administration (BJMOA) Corp., Ltd. [zh] Beijing Public Transit Tramway Co., Ltd. Beijing Capital Metro Corp., Ltd. [zh]
Character	Underground, at grade and elevated
Number of vehicles	6,173 Revenue Railcars (2019)[4]
Technical
System length	836 km (519 mi)[1]
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	1,500 V DC from overhead catenary (lines 6, 11, 14, 16, 17 and 19) or from third rail (line 7) 25 kV 50 Hz AC from overhead catenary (Daxing Airport Express) 750 V DC from overhead catenary (Xijiao line) or from third rail (other lines)
System map

The Beijing Subway is the rapid transit system of Beijing Municipality that consists of 27 lines including 22 rapid transit lines, two airport rail links, one maglev line and 2 light rail lines, and 490 stations.^[1] The rail network extends 836 km (519 mi)^[1] across 12 urban and suburban districts of Beijing and into one district of Langfang in neighboring Hebei province. With 3.8484 billion trips delivered in 2018,^[2] an average of 10.544 million trips per day,^[2] the Beijing Subway is the world's busiest metro system. Single-day ridership set a record of 13.7538 million on July 12, 2019.^[3] Being 836 kilometres (519 mi) in system length, the Beijing Subway is the longest metro system by route length, surpassing the Shanghai Metro in December 2023.

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 30, 2023, with the openings of extensions to Line 11, Line 16, and Line 17.