When it was built in 1957 the Beijing Planetarium was the first of its kind in China.

It is located diagonally opposite the Beijing Zoo in the northwestern part of the city and is composed of a planetarium, an exhibition hall, a lecture hall and an astronomical observatory.

The planetarium, with its cupola measuring 25 meters in diameter, is the main focus of interest of the entire complex. At regular intervals, 45-minute presentations take the visitor on a trip through the heavens made possible by projectors installed in the center of the hall which faithfully reproduce an image of the starry sky on the inside of the cupola.