This Day, That Year

Item from Sept 19, 1992, in China Daily: Construction crews are busy working inside Beijing's Xidan subway station, which is expected to be completed before National Day on Oct 1.

Beijing is the first city in the country to have a subway system, starting operation in 1971. By the end of last year, it had 18 lines and 278 stations in operation. The city has 554 kilometers of subway tracks, the world's second-longest after Shanghai, which didn't have a subway system until 1993.

The subway carried 3.25 billion passengers last year, or an average of 8.9 million per day. The daily record was 12.69 million, set on April 29.