A yamen (ya-men; traditional Chinese: 衙門; simplified Chinese: 衙门; pinyin: yámén; Wade–Giles: ya-men; Manchu: ᠶᠠᠮᡠᠨyamun) was the administrative office or residence of a local bureaucrat or mandarin in imperial China, Korea, and Vietnam. In some places, such as Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, it was named as almshouse. A yamen can also be any governmental office or body headed by a mandarin, at any level of government: the offices of one of the Six Ministries is a yamen, but so is a prefectural magistracy. The term has been widely used in China for centuries, but appeared in English during the Qing dynasty.
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Yamen in the context of Fu (administrative division)
Fu (Chinese: 府; pinyin: ) is a traditional administrative division of Chinese origin used in the East Asian cultural sphere, translated variously as commandery, prefecture, urban prefecture, or city. They were first instituted as a regular form of administrative division of China's Tang Empire, but were later adopted in Vietnam, Japan and Korea. At present, only two fu still remain: the prefectures of Kyoto and Osaka in Japan.
The term fu is currently also used in Chinese to translate the provinces of Thailand, but not those of mainland China, Taiwan or other countries.
Yamen in the context of Shuntian Prefecture
Shuntian Prefecture was an administrative region of China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, equivalent to Beijing Municipality in today's People's Republic of China. However, the area of the prefecture jurisdiction was different. The term Shuntian fu also referred to the yamen (office) of the prefecture's local government.