Peking Opera, also known as Pingju, Peking Opera, etc., is one of the quintessence of China, and is the most influential opera in China. It is distributed around the country with Beijing as the center.

Since the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1790), the four major Hui troupes, mainly Anhui artists, including Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai, and Hechun, which were originally performed in the south, have successively entered Beijing. They have cooperated with Han Opera artists from Hubei, accepted some repertoires, tunes and performance methods of Kunqu Opera and Qin Opera, and absorbed some local folk tunes. Through continuous exchange and integration, Beijing Opera has finally formed.

Beijing opera has a set of standardized artistic expressions in literature, performance, music, stage art and other aspects. The aria of Beijing opera belongs to the variation of plate style, with Erhuang and Xipi as the main tunes. The accompaniment of Peking Opera is divided into two categories: the Wenchang and the Wuchang. The Wenchang mainly plays the musical instrument of Hu Qin, and the Wuchang mainly plays the drumbeat.

The roles of Peking Opera are divided into Sheng, Dan, Jing, Ugly, Miscellaneous, Wu and Liu. The latter three lines no longer specialize in Peking Opera. Now the roles of Peking Opera are divided into Sheng, Dan, Jing and Ugly. All trades have a set of performance programs, and the skills of singing, chanting and playing have their own characteristics. The main content of Beijing opera is historical stories. There are more than 1300 traditional plays and more than 3400 frequently performed ones.

Peking Opera has spread throughout the country and has a wide influence. It is known as "National Opera". The Peking Opera performance system named after Mei Lanfang is regarded as the representative of the oriental drama performance system and one of the three major performance systems in the world. Peking Opera is an important form of expression of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, in which a variety of artistic elements are used as symbols of traditional Chinese culture.

In May 2006, Beijing Opera was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. In 2010, it was included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List (roster) of representatives of human intangible cultural heritage.