Ba Sing Se

Ba Sing Se is the titanic capital of the Earth Kingdom, encompassing nearly all of the northeast corner of the country. In the Avatar world, it was the safest place for war refugees until it was captured by the Fire Nation.

History
Once capital of the Earth Kingdom and by far the largest city in any of the Four Nations, Ba Sing Se means “Impenetrable City”; The city is so named for its two world-famous walls, the gates of which have no hinges or other hardware and are opened by use of Earthbending. Behind the Outer Wall lies a large expanse of farmland, Lake Laogai, and several mountains. The Inner Wall encloses the city itself. The last great Earth Kingdom stronghold after the fall of Omashu, the fall of Ba Sing Se left the Earth Kingdom with no great points of commerce, military activity, or military or commercial production.

Earlt in its history, Ba Sing Se was once simply a small subterranean city carved out of rocks by Earthbenders. As the benders further excavated, they came across beautiful illuminated crystals and began to mine them. The crystals currently serve as a common light source for Earth Kingdom inhabitants. Eventually, as the metropolis' expansion reached above ground levels, the catacombs were abandoned.

In the history of the city, the Outer Wall has only been breached on two occasions: The first was by Fire Nation military forces led by General Iroh, the legendary “Dragon of the West”. This attack, a part of his 600 day long siege of the city, was quickly driven back by the city’s guardian forces after he was weakened by the death of his son, Lu Ten. Years later, the Fire Nation used a great drill to bore through the Outer Wall, but Aang and his friends stopped the machine before the army could take advantage of the hole. By the end of the Season 2 finale, Ba Sing Se had fallen to the hands of the Fire Nation through an internal coup d'état lead by Princess Azula.

Fall of Ba Sing Se
''Your princess Azula, clever and beautiful, disguised her self as the enemy, and entered the Earth Kingdom’s capital. In Ba Sing Se she found her brother, Zuko. And together they faced the avatar. And the Avatar fell. And the Earth Kingdom fell! Azula’s agents quickly overtook the entire city. They went to Ba Sing Se’s great walls, and brought them down. The armies of the fire nation surged through the walls and swarmed over Ba Sing Se, securing our victory.''

-Lo and Li's speech about the fall of Ba Sing Se in"The Awakening"

In "The Earth King," Princess Azula and her allies, Mai and Ty Lee, disguised themselves as Kyoshi Warriors in order to enter Ba Sing Se as the Earth King's honored guests. During the events of "The Guru" and "The Crossroads of Destiny", Azula let herself and her allies be uncovered as Fire Nation. The Dai Li, as Azula knew they would, took her to see their leader, Long Feng. The two allied in order to stage a coup against the Earth King and the Council of Five. Azula took command of the Dai Li and coordinated the simultaneous capture of the Earth King and the Council of Five, gaining control over the city. Long Feng was in turn released from his prison cell. He attempted to double cross Azula, but without the support of the Dai Li, he failed and submitted to Azula. The following summer, the city is firmly controlled by Fire Nation forces, who gained access to the city after the Dai Li tore down large sections of the Outer and Inner Walls. The citizens could only look on in horror as the Fire Nation Army flooded into the city.

Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se


Underneath the palace, and possibly much of the city, lies Old Ba Sing Se, an ancient underground city deep within the earth. These catacombs are the remnants of the first settlement in the area, carved underground by Earthbenders. When the city outgrew the original city and spread to the surface, the caverns were abandoned and eventually buried beneath the new city. Inside the interior of Old Ba Sing Se still lie the ancient stone structures, a waterfall and pool, and the luminescent green crystals that gave Ba Sing Se its fame.

Layout


Ba Sing Se is a divided city, with inhabitants sorted in various walled "rings" based on economic and social class. These range from the Lower Ring, a place of ghettos inhabited by refugees and the poor, to the Upper Ring, home of the Kingdom's ruling classes and the rich. Travel throughout the city (in addition to entering and exiting it) is provided by large, earthbending powered monorails, constructed during the reign of Earth King Yi Ming. The monorails meet in large transit stations, are free to the general public, and are able to greatly shorten the two full days it would take to travel on foot from one end of the city to the other.

Agrarian Zone


Just outside the lower ring, between the outer wall and the inner wall of the city is the agrarian zone, a large underdeveloped area that holds wide open plains of land, primarily used for farming. Despite its vital wildlife and crops resources, the agrarian zone's primary function is serving as a massive land buffer between the outer wall and the inner wall, where all of the Ba Sing Se residents dwell, widening the gap between invaders and citizens if perchance the walls were ever breached. With a self-sustaining supply of food and added protection from siege, the citizens of Ba Sing Se are capable of maintaining daily routine, if not thriving, in the midst of even the most critical of wars.

Lower Ring


The Lower Ring plays home to the poor classes of Ba Sing's Se society and the majority of its populous. These consist of newcomers to the city, including its multitude refugees, and 'people who work with their hands' such as artisans, laborers, and craftsman. Due to the impoverished state of the citizens of the Lower Ring, as well as the influx of poor refugees, it is implied in "City of Walls and Secrets" that the crime rate is significantly high.

"Lower Ring" is written in Chinese as 下環.

Middle Ring


The Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se contains the city's middle-class populace. Inside this ring are a vast assortment of shops and restaurants as well as the financial district and Town Hall (the oldest building in the Middle Ring). Ba Sing Se University, a massive warehouse of knowledge and a key landmark of the city, is also located in this area.

"Middle Ring" is written in Chinese as 中環.

Upper Ring


As the richest of the three rings, the Upper Ring contains the city's upper class population, as well as military and government officials. The most important citizens of the city reside here, protected against criminal activity by the presence of the Dai Li. The Royal Palace is located in the center of the Upper Ring. Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph received a home positioned in the Upper Class as a reward for their successful efforts against the Fire Nation's powerful drill and against the Fire Nation, itself.

"Upper Ring" is written in Chinese as 上環.

Government
As the capital of the Earth Kingdom, Ba Sing Se was home to the Earth King, ruler of the Earth Kingdom. However, after the death of the 51st Earth King, true power in the city belonged to the city’s Grand Secretariat, Long Feng. As Head of the Dai Li, Ba Sing Se’s "cultural agents", (originally engendered by Avatar Kyoshi following a peasant revolt during the reign of the 46th Earth King) he enforced strict laws within the city, designed to keep him in power and keep knowledge of the war from the King. It was absolutely forbidden to mention the war with the Fire Nation within the city, and those that did were arrested and re-educated in secret Dai Li facilities to the belief that the war did not exist. According to Long Feng, his measures were necessary to maintain Ba Sing Se’s cultural heritage and to ensure that the city remains a thriving utopia; however, in truth, they were merely tools used to uphold his totalitarian government.



Though the Earth King had Long Feng arrested during the events of "The Earth King," he allied himself with Azula to engineer a coup d'etat during the events of "The Guru" and, in "The Crossroads of Destiny," he was betrayed by his own Dai Li and ultimately surrendered the city to the Princess of the Fire Nation.

The position of the Earth King was abolished after the Fire Nation took the city, sending the 52nd Earth King into exile. He was replaced by Azula with Joo Dee, as a puppet ruler with the title "Supreme Bueareaucratic Administrator of Ba Sing Se".

Culture
The people of Ba Sing Se value order and stability over freedom. Law and order are maintained under the strictest of police forces to ensure that society does not break down into chaos. The people of Ba Sing Se have a variety of recreational activities available to them including spas and poetry houses. When the people of Ba Sing Se finish a hard day of work it is common to stop off for a nice cup of tea.

The main characters do not reach Ba Sing Se until "City of Walls and Secrets," where the culture is at first revealed. The city is divided into various levels based on social class, with the ghettos of the poor and refugees being walled off from the rest of the town. It is also revealed that society is heavily controlled, and that the war is not allowed to be mentioned inside the walls. This was meant to maintain order and the cultural heritage of the city, making it the only remaining "utopian" society in the world. The Dai Li maintain strict control of the people and the culture, and prefer to pretend the war does not exist. This is most likely the result of Ba Sing Se's safety - the people of the city consider it impenetrable, and thus feel they can delude themselves into pretending all is fine in the rest of the Kingdom. Those who attempt to disrupt this fantasy are promptly brainwashed by the Dai Li into believing that the war doesn't even exist.

Royal Palace


Located within the Upper Ring, at the center of Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kings' palace and surrounding grounds are the spiritual and military center of the entire Earth Kingdom. It is here where the Earth King spends all his days, never leaving the safety of the walled palace. The palace is structured around a meridian line that cuts through the center of the city, from West to East, and leads directly to the Earth Kings throne. The Royal Palace itself is a tiered compound of towers, gardens, shrines, and courts that has been the home of the Earth Kings since the city was first constructed.

Only servants and the highest-ranking citizens of Ba Sing Se are allowed entry into the palace grounds, and even they are never permitted to enter the Royal Shrine located at the center of the palace grounds, which is reserved solely for the Earth King and his wives. Common citizens are forbidden from entering the Earth King's walled domain, unless they receive a personal invitation from the King himself. The Royal Palace and the Earth King are personally protected by the Kings Guards, an elite force of guards who act as sentries against intruders. Though not on par with the Dai Li, their earthbending ability allows them to send impressive stone projectiles from the palace towers, enabling them to easily crush any would be invaders.

The Palace grounds are consisted primarily of numerous ceremonial temples, quarters to house the Kings servants, intricate gardens, and the King's menagerie of rare, exotic animals. Having a taste for tea, the grounds also hold the King's Tea Palace, an elegant tea room surrounded by lush gardens where tea is brewed and served to the Earth King, who occasionally meets with honored guests. In addition, the palace grounds contain the Ba Sing Se prison, a maximum-security jail made entirely of solid metal in order to prevent Earthbenders from escaping. Long Feng makes the claim that he built the prison as a solution to the growing crime epidemic within Ba Sing Se and believes that the criminals it holds are a direct threat to the Earth King, but in actuality, he uses the jail to imprison those who oppose him and the Dai Li and the criminals themselves are actually political prisoners punished for speaking the truth.

Fighting Cliffs
South of Ba Sing Se, the cliffs, one white the other red, stand facing each other with a wide ravine between them. Early Earth Kingdom natives noticed that the ground of the ravine was charred and black and legend holds that the cliffs were created in an ancient battle between Earthbenders and Firebenders, the conflict being awesome that the very ground they fought on soaked up their power and animosity. The cliffs currently are mined for "spark rocks," small, craggy stones used by Earth Kingdom citizens to start fires as displayed by Iroh in "City of Walls and Secrets".

University of Ba Sing Se


The greatest university in the world, at least according to its enrollment materials, the BSSU campus is a major landmark in the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. Once a great warehouse of knowledge for the citizens of Ba Sing Se, since the ascent of Long Feng the academic offerings of BSSU have become somewhat tainted, especially in the areas of current events and political science. It is still, however, regarded as a major achievement of engineering, architecture, and science, especially in its famed Kim Astrology Tower and the two-acre Mung-Yi Research Koi Pond.

Council's War Room


A large room located in the upper ring of Ba Sing Se where the Council of Five meets to discuss war plans. The Councils war room is where the Generals draft their war plans before sending them to the Earth King for final approval. Prior to the Earth King's revelation regarding the war, the Generals would commonly send their plans to Grand Secretariat Long Feng for approval. On the floor of the room is a large map of the Avatar world with colored stone tokens spread out across it representing military units. The Generals move these tokens around to deduce the most effective battle strategies. It is here where General How and the others made the decision to use General Fong's base as the launching point for the Fire Nation invasion.

Royal Earthbender Guards


The Royal Earthbender Guards of Ba Sing Se are affiliated with neither the Dai Li nor the military, instead they serve as personal protectors of the Earth King, as seen in "The Earth King". There seems to be hundreds of them guarding the Royal Palace. They have also been seen as the gate keepers of the outer and inner walls of Ba Sing Se. The guards use specialized surface-to-surface rocks against invaders approaching on foot, but as displayed in "The Earth King", the projectiles can also serve as surface-to-air rocks against airborne intruders, such as Appa. They wear dark green armor with a green feather on the top. The Earthbender guards first appeared in "The Drill" and were portrayed in "City of Walls and Secrets" as the Earth King's guards and in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" as gatekeepers of the inner wall.

Terra Team


A platoon of elite Earthbenders that guard the walls of Ba Sing Se commanded by General Sung. The Terra Team was ordered to destroy the Fire Nation drill attacking the wall, but were easily disabled by Mai and Ty Lee. Their name is clearly influenced by the Latin word "Terra," literally meaning "earth."

Food Resource
Ba Sing Se's greatest secret to its staying power in the war is the farmland behind its outer wall. Seen in the episode "The Drill," these fields supply the entire city with food to enable them to survive a siege of any duration, so long as the outer wall remains intact, and, due to Earthbending, can be quickly repaired. (It was apparently breached during Iroh's siege, as seen in "Zuko Alone"; however, the city survived, as the siege broke shortly thereafter.)

Trivia

 * The Earth King's palace in Ba Sing Se resembles the Forbidden City of China.
 * The walls of Ba Sing Se have only been penetrated once, by the Dragon of the West (Iroh), during his 600 day siege. According to General Sung, "they were quickly expunged". (Expunged usually means, all references removed from the "record" of an event, as opposed to "expelled", physically removed from a place)
 * In "The Drill," at the arrival station where Zuko and Iroh got their passports stamped is a large sign above that says 歡迎光臨永固城 which translates as "Welcome to Ba Sing Se". Ba Sing Se (永固城) means 'perpetually strong city,' not impenetrable city as General Sung stated. The words also appear in front of word University (永固城大學) at the entrance of the school seen in City of Walls and Secrets.
 * Ba Sing Se's walls are so massive that they are considered a geological feature and show up on all world maps. This emulates the Great Wall of China which is (erroneously) said to be the only structure on Earth that can be seen from space.

Notable Figures

 * The Earth King
 * Long Feng
 * The Dai Li
 * General How
 * General Sung
 * Joo Dee
 * Madame Macmu-Ling
 * Quon
 * Star
 * Pao
 * Jin
 * Kenji