 The imperial capital was meant to exist outside of any one region, even the one it was physically located in.To achieve this it used a text based plan, a cult of heaven, forced migration, and symbolization of the city as the Emperor.The evolution of the imperial capital occurred in three stages, first the super-regional capital on Xianyang, followed by the semi-regional and semi-textual capital of Chang'an, and finally fully realized in the fully textual capital of Luoyang.