Xanadu was the capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China, before he decided to move his throne to the Jin Dynasty capital of Zhōngdū, which he renamed Dàdū, present-day Beijing. It then became his summer capital. Xanadu was visited by the Venetian traveller Marco Polo in about 1275, and in 1797 inspired the famous poem Kubla Khan by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Xanadu was located in what is now called Inner Mongolia, 350 kilometres (220 mi) north of Beijing, about 28 kilometres (17 mi) northwest of the modern town of Duolun. The layout of the capital is roughly square shaped with sides of about 2,200 m; it consists of an "outer city", and an "inner city" in the southeast of the capital which has also roughly a square layout with sides about 1,400 m, and the palace, where Kublai Khan stayed in summer. The palace has sides of roughly 550 m, covering an area of around 40% the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The most visible modern-day remnants are the earthen walls though there is also a ground-level, circular brick platform in the centre of the inner enclosure.
Thanks to the poem by Coleridge, Xanadu became a metaphor for splendor and opulence. It was the name of Charles Foster Kane's estate in the film Citizen Kane, and also that of Mandrake the Magician in the long-running comic strip. The title of the 1980 film Xanadu is a reference to Coleridge's poem. This film starred Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John and was widely considered a big-budget flop, but its soundtrack spawned several hit singles for Newton-John, such as the number one hit "Magic", a duet with Cliff Richard called "Suddenly", and, with Electric Light Orchestra accompaniment, the title song "Xanadu". ELO had soundtrack hits of their own with "I'm Alive" and "All Over the World".
