At the heart of Beijing’s Imperial City lies the sprawling palace complex of the Forbidden City. Home to China’s celestial emperors, its heavenly grounds were off-limits to ordinary mortals. In modern-day Beijing, China’s leaders talk of the capital city’s future role in much more outward-oriented and earthly terms. They look not only to embrace other surrounding lower-tier Chinese cities, in forming a megacity cluster, but in creating five so-called “super-cities” across the country – the Greater Bay Area (GBA), Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (Jing-Jin-Ji), the mid-Yangtze River area, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration. These will link to countries and regions across the Eurasian supercontinent and beyond.