Talk:Shangdu

China: History Start‑class High‑importance

	China portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Chinese history (assessed as High-importance).

Middle Ages Unassessed

	Middle Ages portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle Ages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Middle Ages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Middle AgesWikipedia:WikiProject Middle AgesTemplate:WikiProject Middle AgesMiddle Ages
???	This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Poem

Just for general info, I edited the last sentence of the article to clarify that the film "Xanadu" is a reference to Coleridge's Poem "Kubla Khan" and not to Kane's estate.

Poem

Kublah Khan is not necessarily describing Xanadu...it is actually an allegory which some even believe to be about sexual intercourse. --Ari89 02:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

don't some sources (m-w.com for example_ say xanadu is a made up word? and it is true that Xanadu the poem is not meant as a literal description

Xanadu the poem? Are you talking about Kublah Khan by COleridge?--Ari89 16:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The poem Kublah Khan is at least inspired by by Xanadu the city, and worth note because it is the main venue for most people's knowledge of the word. Also, even if the word "Xanadu" is made up by westerners, it is the name that the majority of the world knows it by.--The reverend 01:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

Perhaps we could add a note on pronunciation. I believe "khanadoo" is the correct, but I've only heard "zannadoo" as the pronunciation for the place. Andelarion 11:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Titan

Xanadu is also a region/continent on Saturn moon Titan. 89.57.145.86 23:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am pretty sure Kublai Khan had nothing to do with that Xanadu. Altgeld (talk) 13:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hurstcastle

In Citizen Cane, Hurstcastle is called Xanadu. 67.188.172.165 04:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you acually mean Hearst Castle? —Quicksilver^{T @} 07:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Location and size

I have simplified the location to degrees, minutes and seconds. 0.01 of a second is about 30cm (one foot) and it is not sensible to give the location of a huge structure to that level of precision. I have also added figures for the dimensions of the inner and outer cities and the palace. All this information is derived from satellite imagery available on Google Earth as at 11 Nov 2006. FitzHugh 00:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it worth noting that walls run exactly North-South/East-West (from Google Earth)? Rather a fine achievement for 1256... Oscar Bravo (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture

It seems a bit odd that the Xanadu in popular culture section is longer than the main part of the text. -- Beardo (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is disproportionate. This appears because people are using items that can be found on the disambiguation page and also items that have no reference to this usage of the word, such as the stagehand named Xanadu from a garage band, (whose own wiki page reads like a religious argument and describes him as a "...friend Xanadu, who is a glorified stage hand"). Neither that persons name, nor his description, makes any mention of it having to do with this version of Xanadu.

This page is about this particular usage of the word, a specific location - if the pop-culture references have nothing to do with Xanadu the location described herein, then they should be removed. Lightertack (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

needed?

This section doesn't really belong here, does it? "The Mongol Emperors of the Yuan Dynasty made very few changes to China, imbibing much of the Confucianist and Taoist philosophies, and remodeling their government on the native dynasties they had defeated. However, they opened up the empire to westerners, allowing travelers like Venetian explorer Marco Polo in 1275 to report the wonders of the Eastern capital to their fellow Europeans." what does it have to do with Xanadu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.161.90.238 (talk) 00:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proper lemma

Previous editors have made it their policy to move any of the appearances of Xanadu in Western culture, beginning with and referring back to Marco Polo, someplace else and focused this article on Kublai Khan's actual city. I must disagree with this.

The Chinese/Mongolian city was not called "Xanadu" - it was called Shangdu and hence should be placed under that lemma.

It was transcribed as Xanadu by Marco Polo and then took on a life of its own, as a symbol of splendour, a legendary place or (after Citizen Kane) a self-created prison. Hence an explanation of this symbolism should be under the lemma "Xanadu".

Wikilinks confirm this as most "real history" links go through Shangdu, while most links to "Xanadu" are references to one of the many cultural references.

The disambiguation page should merely be a list of occurences from Kublai Khan's to Bill Gates' residence.

Please comment. I will file a move the page request in the foreseeable future. 18:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

With the scarcity of historical refs we don't need 2 separate articles for the poem and the real city. Shii (tock) 18:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

89.164.231.121 (talk) 23:08, 16 January 2011 (UTC)Another song: Dave Dee, Dozy, Becky, Mick and Tich (British group) had a hit "Legend of Xanadu" in 60ies[reply]