Abstract By analyzing the spatial distribution of city-level museums in Beijing city, it puts forward that there are three developing stages and there are different features based on the stages, that is, agglomeration in the inner city centering with Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City (from 1949 to 1979), circular expansion to outer city along the main streets (from 1980 to 1995) and agglomeration along the axis from northeast to southwest (from 1996-2007). Accordingly, the features of Beijing museums' distribution are (1) distinct centrality:about above 50% museums are located in inner city along Changanjie Street; (2) less museums in southern part of city than in the northern:about above 75% museums are in northern area of Changanjie Street and its extending lines, forming the obvious difference between north and south of city; (3) the circular distribution of museums in outer city. Meanwhile, the paper discusses the main factors that lead to such distribution, including historical inertia, economic pull power and transportation accessibility. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the main problems:over-cluster in the inner city, disequilibrium distributed between south and north of city and over-agglomeration along the northwest to southeast axis in the second circle. Based on these analysis, the paper gives the corresponding suggestion to adjust the distribution of the great scale museums in the future. For example, the new museums should make areas near the 5th Ring Road and new towns, Yizhuang, Huairou, Changping and Tongzhou as the optimal location, and merge the similar ones and strengthen the function.
2009, Vol. 24 
