Dissolution

During the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, some of the instruments were looted by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900, but towards the end of World War I they were returned to China by the governments of France and Germany.

The Qintianjian was dissolved following the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912 and the establishment of the Republic of China. Its astronomical functions were absorbed into modern scientific institutions, while its calendrical, astrological, and geomantic functions — increasingly characterised as superstition (迷信, míxìn) by modernisation reformers — were officially discontinued by the state.[24] The bureau's extensive archives of astronomical records, spanning centuries of systematic observation, have been the subject of study by historians of science, as they contain data on eclipses, supernovae, comets, and other celestial events of value to modern astronomy. In June 1912, it was transferred to the Ministry of Education, reorganized into an observatory, and tasked with compiling the Almanac of the First Year of the Republic of China.

Qintianjian has been preserved in modern-day Beijing and is one of the city's attractions. (See Beijing Ancient Observatory). Currently, the observatory is a museum and part of the Beijing Planetarium.