The Beijing Olympic Green is large park located on the northern central axis of the city. It occupies an area of 1,215 hectares, with over half of this set aside for trees and open spaces, with the other half being taken up by Olympic structures and the China Nationalities Village. The  trees and open spaces of the Olympic Green provide a natural lung for the city. It contains 44% of the total Olympic sports venues and most of the service facilities. The area contains 14 sports venues, the Olympic Village, the Reporters' Village, as well as a news center, an international broadcasting and TV center all of which were used during the games and are still used to an extent now the Olympics have finished.

The Olympic Village provided a safe, quiet and beautiful environment as well as comfort and a convenient location for the athletes during the Beijing Olympics. Its construction area is about 470,000 square meters. The Olympic Village housed 16,000 athletes, coaches and accompanying staff, with the head of the village being the famous Chinese female athlete Deng Yaping.

Covering a floor space of 400,000 square meters, the Reporters' Village is no more than 6 minutes' walking distance from the Olympic venues. The design of the Beijing Olympic Green is that of a leisure park with scenery similar to  that of a classical Chinese landscape painting. The area of the park is larger than the total of the Summer Palace and the Yuanmingyuan Park. Despite a traffic ban during the Olympic Games, there were crowds of people taking photos of the Bird's Nest and Water Cube everyday, and the site remains a very popular tourist destination to this day.