MUKDEN, mook'den, MOUKDEN, or FUNG-TIEN-FU, capital of Manchuria and of the province of Shinking, situated on the Hun, a tributary of the Liau River, about 500 miles northeast of Peking. Its port is Newch wang, about 120 miles distant, near the Gulf of Liao-Tong. It is the cradle of the Manchu race, and until recently was known by its old Chinese name of Sin-Yang, its Manchu name of Mukden — or "Flourishing Capitals— given to it by its conqueror nearly 200 years ago, being used only in official documents. It is a station on the Russo-Chinese Railroad, and is surrounded by walls laid out in regular parallelograms between one and two miles each way, and built of squared stone or brick, thick and massive at the base and tapering gradnally to the top. These walls are 40 feet in height, 21 feet in width, and are protected at the top by an eight-foot crenelated parapet. Outside these walls there is a wide moat, and then come the suburbs, which extend for a mile or more on all sides. These again are enclosed by walls, which are constructed of mud. In the heart of the town is an inner wall, three miles in circuit, enclosing the emperor's residence, the government offices, courts and other build ings connected with them, which are arranged on a plan similar to those of Peking. In 1631
the Manchu monarchs made Mukden the seat of government, and succeeding emperors have done much to enlarge and beautify it. At Muk den are the tombs of the Manchu emperors, and the royal buiying ground is ornamented with stone images of elephants as ponderous as some of the carved shapes that mark the graves of Egyptian kings. Other interesting relics of the past in the environs of the city are the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Earth, both of which were built by Tai Tsung, and the remains of which are still to be seen.
Like all the cities of Manchuria, Mukden is laid out on a regular plan not unlike Amer ican towns. The main street runs due north and south, and the second best crosses it at right angles, while parallel to these run a series of alleys teeming with an industrious popula tion.
The city suffered greatly during the uprising of the Boxers in 1900, and was used by the Russian army under Kuropatkin as a base of supplies during the Russo-Japanese War. It was captured (March 1905) by the Japanese army in one of the greatest and most remark able battles of modern history. Pop. about 250,000. See MANCHURIA.