Ba Sing Se

Ba Sing Se 永固城
Intendancy and sui generis royal city
Royal City of Ba Sing Se
From top, left to right: Walls of Ba Sing Se, Legation Quarter, Palace of Ba Sing Se and its Meridian Gate, Ba Sing Se University, Agricultural Zone
Etymology: "Ever-Invincible City"
Country	Earth Kingdom
Superintendency	South Jidai
Founded by	Yuan Wong (legendary)
Government
• Type	Royal intendancy
• Earth King	Ainin
• Superintendent of South Jidai	Prince Shu of Chungmen
• Intendant	Count Si-dai of Huangshi
• Chief Magistrate	Min San-wai
Area
• Total	81,186 blocks
Elevation	15 m (49 ft)
Abbreviation	永

Ba Sing Se (Terran: 永固城) is the capital and largest city of the Earth Kingdom. Located in the southeastern corner of the Earth Kingdom, the city is a diverse metropolis with residents hailing from around both the Earth Kingdom and the world and an extensive network of public infrastructure, making it one of the largest and most developed cities in the world. As the economic, cultural and administrative heart of the Earth Kingdom, Ba Sing Se is the seat to virtually all of the nation's major businesses, government bodies and educational institutions, playing an outsized role in world affairs. Ba Sing Se is administered as a royal intendancy and, as part of the Superintendency of South Jidai, is incorporated within the royal domain of the Earth King.

Situated on the Central Sea, Ba Sing Se is a major trading port and boasts extensive harbour facilities that handle trade and migration from throughout the Earth Kingdom and the world at large. The city is best known for its towering defensive wall, which fully envelops its built-up area and encloses an extensively terraformed oasis of lush vegetation within an otherwise arid desert. As one of the oldest earthbender settlements in the world, Ba Sing Se is said to have been established by Yuan Wong, the mythical founder of the Earth Kingdom. In recent years, it has expanded its influence over vast hinterlands and shifted from a regional centre to a world city as a result of the Unification of the Earth Kingdom.

As the capital of the strictly hierarchical Earth Kingdom, Ba Sing Se is a strongly stratified city with its social exclusions reflected in the physical landscape: the city is divided into rigid zones (or rings) of land use, including both class-segregated residential sectors and use-based areas, such as industrial and agricultural sectors. The city is home to such notable landmarks as the Palace of Ba Sing Se, the seat of the Earth Kingdom's government; Ba Sing Se University, the world's first institution of higher learning; Grand Central Station, the world's first and largest train station; and the Ba Sing Se Metro, an extensive, largely underground rapid transit system.

Etymology

The name Ba Sing Se derives from the Terran characters 永 (perpetual, long-lasting), 固 (strong, firm) and 城 (city), roughly translating to "ever-invincible city". The name is said to have been granted to the city by its legendary founder Yuan Wong, who wrote in the Doctrines of the Earth Kingdom that a stable royal capital was a prerequisite to pacify the regions and bring order to the realm. Scholars believe that the name directly refers to the city's walls, which prior to the discovery of gunpowder were thought impervious to any external invader.

Geography

Districts

Palace Precinct (Upper Ring)

The Meridian Gate is the eastern entrance to the Royal Palace and one of the landmarks of Ba Sing Se

The Palace Precinct (Terran: 宫区), commonly known as the Upper Ring (Terran: 上环), is the elite sector of the city reserved for the Earth King, the most important nobles and the highest functions of state. Centered on the Palace of Ba Sing Se, the seat of the Earth Kingdom government, the Palace Precinct includes the adjoining buildings to the palace. These buildings include:

• The Meridian Gate (中门), the monumental eastern entrance to the palace grounds within which are located a variety of storage facilities, military installations, and residences for servants and guards;
• The Temple of Solid Earth (永土宫), a Celestialist temple complex located in the southeastern corner of the Upper Ring which hosts the original copies of the three sacred texts: the Classic of Origins, the Classic of Nations and the Doctrines of the Earth Kingdom;
• The Royal Commission, officially known as His Majesty's Commission of Justice (皇家司法会), the high court of the Earth Kingdom that sits at the apex of the state judiciary and which hears important civil cases, criminal trials of notable individuals and appeals from summary convictions by magistrates;
• The Royal Guesthouse (皇家宾馆), the state guest house for visiting dignitaries and other guests of the Earth King.

City Area (Mid Ring)

The City Area (Terran: 市区), commonly known as the Mid Ring (Terran: 中环), is the economic core of Ba Sing Se and includes a diverse range of residential, commercial, industrial and institutional uses. The Mid Ring covers most of Ba Sing Se's land area and is home to most middle-class residents and nobles.

Neighbourhoods of the Mid Ring

Name	Image	Description
Legation Quarter 使馆区		Home to the embassies and legations that represent foreign nations in the Earth Kingdom, the Legation Quarter is a cosmopolitan neighbourhood centered on the monumental Pingtai Boulevard. Made up of luxurious courtyard homes, the neighbourhood has spilled over into the nearby Market Avenue and Yaxia areas due to the high demand for new diplomatic missions.
Royal Market 皇家市场		Located to the north of the Grand Harbour, the Royal Market extends from Pingtai Boulevard to the north city wall and comprises one of the largest open-air markets in the world. Merchants from around the world sell both local and imported goods, including food, clothes and manufactured goods. The Royal Market is particularly known for its street food hawkers and textile sellers.
Market Avenue 市场大街	TBD	Located due east of the Royal Market, Market Avenue is a neighbourhood built around the thoroughfare of the same name. The street is lined with luxury courtyard homes occupied by upper class residents and some foreign diplomats, along with the homes and practices of upper middle-class professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, bankers and senior civil servants.
Industrial Park 工业区		The expansive Industrial Park, which stretches from the Gate of Inner Perfection to the palace ring road, and outward for several blocks in both the east and west directions, is an industrial area filled with manufactories, refineries and other factories. The area is known for its tall smokestacks and the lingering smell of soot.
Yanchiangshan 岩浆山 (Lava Hill)	TBD	Located on the plateau separating the Industrial Park from Market Avenue, Yanchiangshan is an upper middle class area made up of modest courtyard villas and apartment buildings. The area is primarily residential, but there are also some shops and some home-based professional services.
Muchang 牧场 (Pastures)	TBD	Bounded by the Agricultural Zone wall, the northern city wall, the Industrial Park and the palace ring road, Muchang is a middle class residential area comprised of apartment buildings. Neighbourhood residents are largely civil servants and Industrial Park plant managers.
Yaxia 崖下 (Below the Cliff)	TBD	Yaxia is a residential area located between Pingtai Boulevard and the Zoological Garden heights. Situated at the foot of the cliff, the extremely affluent neighbourhood is made up of courtyard villas.
Zoological Garden 动物园		The Zoological Garden is a public park and the menagerie of the Earth King, comprising a number of displays featuring animals from across the world and the Nether dimension.
Ba Sing Se University 永固城皇家大学		Main article: Ba Sing Se University Ba Sing Se University is the oldest university in the world and the Earth Kingdom's premier institution of learning. Built in a courtyard style, the university complex is made up of five buildings surrounding a central quadrangle.

Lower Ring

The Lower Ring (Terran: 下环) is a sector of Ba Sing Se reserved for commoners of modest means, notably including the city's lower classes, migrant workers, beggars and the infirm. Separated from the rest of the city by the Sanitary Canal, an open-air aqueduct, the Lower Ring is notable for its unplanned nature, poor quality infrastructure and perennial overcrowding. Despite its small size, the Lower Ring is home to an overwhelming majority of the city's residents.

Neighbourhoods of the Lower Ring

Name	Image	Description
Chiangbian 墙边 (Besides the Wall)		Made up of the westernmost blocks of the Lower Ring, Chiangbian is a residential neighbourhood notable for having many homes built directly against the city wall. The neighbourhood is mostly populated by shopkeepers, professional tradesmen and some lower-income workers who commute to other city sectors for work, including office clerks and civil servants. It includes all areas in the Lower Ring located west of the western public well.
Chungchi 中西 (Centre West)		Located towards the western end of the Lower Ring, Chungchi includes all buildings located between the western public well and Nangong Avenue that do not directly abut the latter. Chungchi is a dense and overcrowded neighbourhood comprised of working poor residents, and it is popular with migrant workers from other parts of the Earth Kingdom.
Nangong Dajie 南港大街 (South Harbour High Street)	TBD	Nangong Dajie comprises all the homes and businesses that directly abut Nangong Avenue, the large thoroughfare that bisects the Lower Ring and leads from the Mid Ring to the Southern Harbour. The neighbourhood includes a large number of shops, restaurants, lower-middle class dwellings and the central police station.
Chiangwai 墙外 (Outside the Wall)		Chiangwai is the only neighbourhood of Ba Sing Se located outside the city wall and comprises a number of dwellings built around the city's secondary port outside the Gate of Outward Perfection. Chiangwai includes the Southern Harbour of Ba Sing Se, which handles internal commoner migration to and from the city as well as less desirable cargoes, including scrap metal, livestock and manure. Most residents are fishermen and dockworkers.

Climate and environment

Ba Sing Se is located within an arid desert climate with little native vegetation other than cacti and small bushes. Some grasses are also known to grow along the city's shoreline. Native wildlife consists only of a number of rabbits adapted to the desert heat. The weather is extremely hot year-round and it is not known to rain in Ba Sing Se.

However, thanks to extensive irrigation works and aqueducts built by humans, Ba Sing Se is a man-made oasis within the surrounding desert and known for its verdant greenscapes, including parks, gardens and tree-lines boulevards. This vegetation is non-native to the local ecosystem and imported from both the grasslands of the Earth Kingdom and exotic faraway lands. As a result of this landscaping, Ba Sing Se is noticeably cooler than the surrounding regions and sees occasional cloud cover.

Education and culture

Education

There is no public schooling of any kind in Ba Sing Se. Education is viewed as a strictly private familial responsibility and well-to-do parents typically hire private tutors for the home instruction of their children.

Government and politics

As a part of the royal domain, Ba Sing Se is nominally the personal possession of the Earth King. In practice, the Earth King's personal holdings in the southern Earth Kingdom, including Ba Sing Se, are organized as the Superintendency of South Jidai, a province administered by a royal superintendent on the King's behalf. The Lord High Chamberlain, Prince Shu of Chungmen, is the Superintendent of South Jidai.

Owing to the complexity of administering such a large province, South Jidai is further divided into a number of second-order districts named intendancies, each governed by a royal intendant under the supervision of the Superintendent of South Jidai. The intendant of Ba Sing Se, who performs the functions associated in other nations with a city mayor, is Count Si-dai of Huangshi.

Because security matters are a direct national responsibility, they are outside the purview of the superintendent and instead the charge of an official appointed by the Chancellor of the Earth Kingdom named the chief magistrate. The chief magistrate is the head of the police, the administrator of the local justice system, and the chief prosecutor at the Royal Commission. The current chief magistrate is Advocate Min San-wai.

Public services

Health care

Health care in Ba Sing Se is provided in a wide variety of ways, with access to care and the quality of treatment varying significantly by class and neighbourhood. A large number of trained doctors operate in the city and maintain private practices from their homes in the Mid Ring. These doctors attend to most of the city's middle and upper class residents and typically provide house calls to their patients. In the Lower Ring, the quality of health care is poor and access to trained doctors and provisioned hospitals is heavily restricted. In those neighbourhoods, most medical care is provided by an unregulated industry of healers and shamans of dubious qualification.

A modern hospital with extensive treatment facilities and access to exotic medicines is located on the campus of Ba Sing Se University and operated by its Department of Chemistry and Medicine. This hospital is the teaching hospital of Ba Sing Se University and offers treatment to the Earth Kingdom's political elites, seriously injured patients who cannot be treated at doctors' private practices, and those with the means to pay for world-class care.

Security and defence

Public security in Ba Sing Se is the responsibility of the Uniformed Magistracy, an agency under the command of the chief magistrate of South Jidai. Uniformed magistrates patrol all neighbourhoods of the city to prevent crime and guard the various ingress points in the city walls to prevent unauthorized access. Unlike typical police, uniformed magistrates in the Earth Kingdom have the power to summarily convict suspects of criminal offences after a brief, ad hoc trial at the police station, though their decisions are subject to discretionary review by the Royal Commission. Most uniformed magistrates are typically armed only with batons, but a special division of tactical officers is known to operate with firearms, swords and other weapons. The Uniformed Magistracy also includes the Reserve Yeomanry, a reserve cavalry unit that serves as the crowd control and riot suppression wing of the police force in peacetime. The headquarters of the Uniformed Magistracy is located on Nangong Avenue in the Lower Ring.

Other security forces with specialized jurisdictions in Ba Sing Se include the army provosts, who guard Earth Army installations; the naval corpsmen, who guard Earth Navy installations; the Special Revenue Magistrates, a division of the Secretariat of Accounts which enforces tax laws and inspects shipping to ensure compliance with customs regulations; and the royal guard, who defend the Earth King's palace. Additionally, His Majesty's Secret Service, the feared secret police of the Earth Kingdom, is known to operate within the city and surveil people thought to pose a political risk to the realm's security.

Ba Sing Se is also home to a large number of active and reserve military units. The Royal Life Guard Regiment, comprising two battalions of infantry and one battalion of heavy cavalry, is the main Earth Army unit responsible for the defence of the city. Reserve army units in the city, which are in varying degrees of readiness, include the Royal 2nd Infantry Regiment (Light) and elements of the Defence Service (The Royal 3rd Infantry) Regiment (Reserve). Notably, the army reserve mans two coastal artillery guns that overlook the southern harbour of the city and protect the Lower Ring from attack. Due to the proximity to the Home Fleet anchorage at Fort Kyoshi, the Earth Navy presence in the city itself is limited to two small torpedo boats, ENS Senlin and ENS Si Wong, which provide patrol and picket duties at the city's two harbours.

Transportation

A major junction on the Earth Kingdom highway network is located outside of Ba Sing Se's Gate of Inward Perfection

Roads

Ba Sing Se has an extensive network of city streets, which range from large thoroughfares suitable for several lanes of carriage and pedestrian traffic to narrow alleyways which can only be negotiated on foot. Popular modes of transportation on Ba Sing Se's roads include horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, palanquins and walking; civilian motorized vehicles are prohibited in the Earth Kingdom. The quality of the road network varies significantly by neighbourhood, with tree-lined boulevards and landscaped stone brick avenues to be found in the Upper and Mid Rings but only dusty, winding streets of rough cobblestones to be found in the Lower Ring. Road network access is subject to some restrictions: police checkpoints are situated at the city gates and on the only road bridge between the Mid and Lower Rings to prevent unauthorized people from entering certain sectors of the city.

Three gates for road traffic are found in the city walls, including the Gate of Inward Perfection on the north side, which grants access to the Gaoling–Dehna highway and other destinations such as Misty Palms, Peining and Omashu; the Gate of Outward Perfection on the south side, which grants access to the highway to Cranefish Town, the Khanate and, ultimately, Andorra and Freeport; and the Gate of Ordered Peace on the east side, which opens onto a road tunnel that links the city to its airship docks and railway station.

Sea

Ba Sing Se has two harbours which handle all passenger and freight maritime traffic to and from the city.

The Grand Harbour (Terran: 大港) is the main seaport of Ba Sing Se, located at the western edge of the city on the central axis perpendicular to the royal palace. The docks, which are amongst the largest in the world, handle all international trade, in addition to private yachts, government transport and some internal trade. Comfortable fast ferries that link Ba Sing Se to other destinations in the Central Sea and the Earth Kingdom, including Misty Palms, Polaris and Freeport, call at the Grand Harbour. Because Earth Kingdom government policy strongly favours directing all external trade to the Grand Harbour, it is a perpetually busy facility that serves as the economic heart of the Earth Kingdom.

The Southern Harbour (Terran: 南港) is the secondary seaport of Ba Sing Se, located outside the Gate of Outward Perfection in the Lower Ring. This harbour is much smaller than the Grand Harbour, but nonetheless plays a major role in the city economy. Notably, the harbour is the only authorized docking point for passenger ships carrying migrants from the rest of the Earth Kingdom and handles freight in undesirable and noxious goods, such as coal, chemicals, manure and livestock. Owing to a lack of customs facilities, no international trade is permitted at the Southern Harbour.

Air

Main article: Ba Sing Se Airship Dock

To ostensibly preserve the impenetrable reputation of Ba Sing Se's city walls, longstanding custom prohibits any air vehicle other than the Earth King's personal airships from overflying any part of the city. As such, there are no aviation facilities anywhere in Ba Sing Se, save for two airship berts on the royal palace's Meridian Gate.

Passenger and freight air traffic heading for Ba Sing Se is instead handled at the Ba Sing Se Airship Dock, a large facility outside the city's eastern wall which features four full-sized berths for airships of any size. The facility is also notable for having two high-speed elevators, the first functioning bidirectional elevators in the world, to enable travel between the elevated dock structure and the ground level. Airships that call at the Ba Sing Se Airship Dock travel to destinations throughout the world.

Ba Sing Se Metro

The Ba Sing Se Metro is a rapid transit network used to travel quickly around the city

Main article: Ba Sing Se Metro

The Ba Sing Se Metro (Terran: 永固城地铁) is a mostly underground rapid transit system which serves the Mid Ring of Ba Sing Se. Comprised of a single circular, bidirectional rail line, the Metro has six stations which respectively serve the Harbour, the Royal Market, the Industrial Park, the Meridian Gate, Ba Sing Se University and the Zoological Garden. Most of the network is built as a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel beneath the streets of the Mid Ring, although changes in elevation result in the portion near the Royal Market running at ground-level and the presence of an elevated portion at the Grand Harbour. The Metro is a popular mode of transportation in Ba Sing Se, permitting fast travel between different neighbourhoods of the city. The trains that run on the Metro typically have three cars, which are segregated by class (i.e., the first car is for the upper class, the second for the middle class, and so on). The Metro is free.

Notably, the Metro does not provide service to any portion of the palace grounds owing to the highly restricted access limitations, though Meridian Gate station is located right outside the palace's eastern gate and serves as a popular commuting option for civil servants and other palace employees. There is also no station in the Lower Ring, in order to restrict the access of lower-class people to the rest of the city.

Intercity rail

Main article: Grand Central Station

Ba Sing Se has the world's first and largest intercity rail station, the Grand Central Station, which is located next to the airship docks outside the eastern city wall. The expansive facility, which has three platforms for intercity trains, is situated on the Royal Ba Sing Se Railroad, which connects the city to Cranefish Town. Future planned connections along the railway include Freeport, Casspital and Willowham.

A street-running tram is planned to connect Grand Central Station and the Airship Dock to the Metro's Meridian Gate station.

See also

• Earth Kingdom