Beijing’s Legation Quarter, to the east of Tiananmen Square, held a number of foreign legations between 1861 and 1959. The area bears the name Dong Jiao Min Xiang, from the hutong (neighborhood) that runs through it.

After the establishment of New China (1949), the Legation Quarter was moved to two areas – Jianguomenwai and Sanlitun. The Jianguomenwai quarter, known as Beijing’s first legation quarter, was mainly home to a few socialist countries, who were among the first to recognize the New China and establish diplomatic ties.

The Sanlitun quarter, or the second legation quarter which holds the embassies of developed western countries, was built at the beginning of 1960, under Zhou Enlai’s instruction. It holds Beijing's most significant collection of Western-style buildings, in a leafy, sedate area, and is a popular tourist destination. It is covered by municipal artifact preservation laws.

In 1980, the Municipal Planning and Design Institute set aside a third area for a legation quarter along the Liangma River, but it was not until very recently that some embassies, such as the United States and South Korea, began to move in.