Mukden

Mukden is the historic name for the city now known as Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province in northeast China. Located on the Hun River in the southern part of the Northeast China Plain, it is a major urban and industrial center with a long-standing political and cultural heritage.

The city has a prominent imperial past. In the early 17th century, Nurhaci established the Later Jin in the area, and the city served as the Qing dynasty’s capital before the court moved to Beijing in 1644. The Shenyang Imperial Palace, also known as the Mukden Palace, is a notable surviving complex from the early Qing era and remains a cultural landmark in the city.

In Western and Japanese sources, the city was commonly referred to as Mukden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the site of the Mukden Incident in 1931, when a staged explosion on the South Manchuria Railway near the city provided a pretext for Japan to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.

Today, Shenyang is the administrative, economic, and transportation hub of northeastern China. It hosts heavy industry, manufacturing, and educational institutions, while preserving historical sites such as the Mukden Palace within the Shenyang Imperial Palace complex, which reflect its Qing-era legacy.