Nanjing

American  

[nahn-jing] / ˈnɑnˈdʒɪŋ /

(Older Spelling) Nanking or Nanching

noun

Pinyin.

1. a port in and the capital of Jiangsu province, in eastern China, on the Chang Jiang: a former capital of China.

---

Nanjing British  

/ ˈnænˈtʃɪŋ, ˈnænˈkɪŋ, ˈnænˈdʒɪŋ /

noun

1. a port in E central China, capital of Jiangsu province, on the Yangtze River: capital of the Chinese empire and a literary centre from the 14th to 17th centuries; capital of Nationalist China (1928–37); site of a massacre of about 300 000 civilians by the invading Japanese army in 1937; university (1928). Pop: 2 806 000 (2005 est)

---

Nanjing Cultural  

1. City in eastern China on the Yangtze River, northeast of Shanghai; an industrial and transportation center.

---

Discover More

During the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, Nanjing was the scene of a Japanese massacre (the Rape of Nanking) and became the seat of a puppet regime established by the Japanese.

China's imperial capital on several occasions, it was made capital of the Republic of China by Sun Yat-sen in 1912 after the Chinese Revolution, by Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek from 1928 to 1937, and again from 1946 to 1949.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Nanjing

Yan Xinyi, a 22-year-old Han native of Nanjing, in China’s prosperous east, hopes to one day see the Potala Palace for herself.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026

Shares in the company, which was founded in Nanjing, China, in 2008 but is now headquartered in Singapore, tumbled by as much as 10%.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026

Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole, a longtime basketball fanatic, has signed to play for the Nanjing Monkey Kings in the Chinese Basketball Assn.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026

Researchers from Nanjing Agricultural University and the University of Connecticut, publishing in Horticulture Research, explored this possibility using woodland strawberries.

From Science Daily ● May 5, 2026

Nanjing Road was lined with big stores, and always bustled with activity.

From "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-li Jiang