Xanadu

Xanadu (or Shangdu) was the Western name of the summer capital of Kublai Khan's empire (1215-1294), which covered much of Asia.

The Mongolian Khans made very due changes to their country, imbibing much of the Confucianist and Taoist philosophies, and remodelling their government on the native dyasties they had defeated. However, they opened up the empire to westerners, allowing travellers like Venetian explorer Marco Polo in 1275 to report the wonders of the Eastern capital to their fellow Europeans. The reported splendour of Xanadu later inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write his great poem Kubla Khan and caused Xanadu to become a metaphor for opulence.

Xanadu is remembered today partly thanks to the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which contains the often-quoted line "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn, a stately pleasure-dome decree." It is also known as the fictional mansion built by Charles Foster Kane in the film Citizen Kane.

See also: Project Xanadu, Xanadu (film)