Most of the previous studies on the city of Lin'an of the Southern Song Dynasty focused on its economy, social life and urban culture. As the de facto capital of the Southern Song government, the political side of Lin'an, nevertheless, failed to attract much attention from scholars. As an indispensable part of a capital city, the court yamen is more of an exterior embodiment of its political function. However, previous studies haven't offered sufficient discussion of the court yamen during the Southern Song Dynasty from the perspective of urban history. In view of this, the author therefore adopts sijian as the topic of the paper, and attempts to discuss how the Southern Song government strengthened the political function of Lin'an through the placement of sijian within the city.  In the beginning years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the make-up of sijian underwent several changes as a result of the merging and restructuring of bureaucracies. It finally took shape in the earlier days of the reign of Xiaozong, with five si and three jian left: the former included Court of Imperial Sacrifices, Court of Imperial Clan, Court of Judicial Review, Court of National Granaries, and Court of Imperial Treasury, while the latter consisted of Directorate of Education, Directorate for Palace Buildings, and Directorate for Armaments.  For the Southern Song government, the placement of administrative agencies like sijian within the city of Lin'an is one of the prerequisites for converting a local metropolis into a center of politics. Given the fact that there was not much space in the city and the topography there forbade the expansion of the city, the placement of sijian became a difficult task. As sijian did not belong to the top echelon of the administrative structure of the Southern Song government, high priority would not be given to it as regards the distribution of land. In consequence, there inevitably existed competition among sijian, other government agencies, and civilians for land use, which resulted in the frequent relocation of the yamens of sijian. Through extensive researches of various kinds of historical materials, we are able to get a clear picture of the many locations of sijian in Lin'an and their original functions. The number of relocations of sijian during the Southern Song Dynasty was unrivalled throughout China's dynastic rule.  There was no need for the yamens of sijian, which were distinguished from the core administrative agencies, to be located close to the royal palace. Therefore the government could make flexible arrangements and adjustments in accordance with actual land use, which led to scattered distribution of yamens of sijian in the city. Due to the fact that yamens of all kinds in Lin'an were placed within existing urban space and the yamens of sijian were built upon the land that was previously used for other purposes, sometimes civilian buildings were located adjacent to them. With the ever-increasing population in Lin'an，the tensions between sijian and local residents grew, thus affecting the working environment of sijian. It was not uncommon for civilian buildings to be located too close to the yamens of sijian, and sometimes illegally built houses lay next to them. Factors like these not only interfered with the daily operations of sijian, but also increased fire risks. The government did take some measures to tackle such problems so as to alleviate the adverse effects the surroundings had on the yamens, but those measures were not effective enough. The tortuous path in the placement of sijian during the Southern Song Dynasty mirrors the history of conflicts and negotiations between the political functions of Lin'an and its urban space, and epitomizes the re-designing of urban space after it became the de facto capital of the Southern Song government.