First Province

I saw the the Celestial City. The streets are paved with gold, and its walls are made of jade. There is no winter there, only spring; and they have made it a roof of glass thousands of feet in the air, invisible to the eye, but enchanted so that it may be night when the Empress commands it, and day when the Empress commands it, and so that she may arrange the appearance of the stars to her liking. The Empress sits on a throne made of carved diamond and the bones of her previous vessel, and it is carried with her everywhere, so that she never need sit on anything but that which is divine.
I saw Zaogong also. I saw beggars sitting in the steps of the Grand Temple in the morning, waiting for alms. I asked one man what he knew of the Celestial City. "They say the streets are paved with gold," he told me. "And its walls are made of jade. But those are only fairy-stories. Everyone knows it isn't true."
The journals of Yochebed Chin, daughter of the Imperial Ambassador to Arkala, on a visit to the Empire.

The First Province was the source of Her glorious reign, the seed from which the Empire sprouted. Its official capital is the walled Celestial City, populated entirely by the Empress and her court and forbidden to all others. Its largest city, however, lies to the north. Zaogong, often referred to as the 'People's Capital' of the Empire, its most populated urban settlement, boasting nearly six million people.
Apart from its two great cities, the rest of the First Province is highly developed with factories, a complex railway system, and a number of important harbours from which trade is accomplished with the West. Its geography is marked by dense sections of pine and spruce forest, and its southernmost points remain snowy for the majority of the year.

Capital

The Celestial City