Discover The Forbidden City of China Rulers travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

The Forbidden City ( aka Forbidden Palace ) is located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing, China. It was the imperial palace during the mid-Ming and the Qing Dynasties. The Forbidden City now is known as the Palace Museum and its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters, and at one time supposedly had 800 buildings and more than 8,000 rooms, though there are only 2,172 rooms that remain intact. As such, it is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1977 as the “Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties”. The Imperial Palace Grounds are located directly to the north of Tiananmen Square and are accessible from the square via Tiananmen Gate. It is surrounded by a large area called the Imperial City.

Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was completed fourteen years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor. Stone needed was quarried from Fangshan, a suburb of Beijing. It was said a well was dug every fifty meters along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city. Huge amounts of timber and other materials were freighted from faraway provinces. Ancient Chinese people displayed their very considerable skills in building the Forbidden City. Take the grand red city wall for example. It has an 8.6 meters wide base reducing to 6.66 meters wide at the top. The angular shape of the wall totally frustrates attempts to climb it. The bricks were made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made from glutinous rice and egg whites. These incredible materials make the wall extraordinarily strong.

From its 1420 completion to 1644, when a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng invaded it, the Forbidden City served as the seat of the Ming Dynasty. The following Qing Dynasty also occupied the Forbidden City. In 1860, during the Second Anglo-Chinese Opium War, British forces managed to penetrate to the heart of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war, being the only foreign power to do so.

After being the home of 24 emperors—fourteen of the Ming Dynasty and ten of the Qing Dynasty—the Forbidden City ceased being the political center of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. He was, however, allowed and, in fact, required to live within the walls of the Forbidden City, until a coup launched by a local general in 1924. Puyi was forced out, and the Palace Museum was established in the Forbidden City. Having been the imperial palace for some five centuries, the Forbidden City houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities. These were gradually catalogued and put on public display. However, with the Japanese invasion of China, the safety of these national treasures were cast in doubt, and they were moved out of the Forbidden City. In 1947, after they had been moved from one location to another inside mainland China for many years, Chiang Kai-shek ordered many of the artifacts from the Forbidden City and the National Museum in Nanjing to be moved to Taiwan, where they formed the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This action has been extremely controversial, with some regarding it as looting while others regarding it as safekeeping, especially after the events of the Cultural Revolution on the mainland.

Rectangular in shape, the Forbidden City is the world’s largest palace complex and covers 720,000 square meters (178 acres, or 0.28 square miles). Surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall are five halls, seventeen palaces, and numerous other buildings.

There are unique and delicately structured towers on each of the four corners of the curtain wall. These afford views over both the palace and the city outside. The Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The Outer Court, which includes the southern and central sections, centres on three halls used for ceremonial purposes, such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings. The three halls include the magnificent Hall of Supreme Harmony, itself fronted by the Gate of Supreme Harmony.

The Forbidden City is surrounded by royal gardens. To the west lies Zhongnanhai, the complex of buildings centred on two lakes which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China. To the north-west lies Beihai Park, which also centres on a lake and is a popular park. To the north lies Jingshan Park, also known as Jing Shan or Coal Hill, where the last Ming emperor hanged himself as the rebel army overran his palace.

Nowadays, the Forbidden City, or the Palace Museum is open to tourists from home and abroad. Splendid painted decoration on these royal architectural wonders, the grand and deluxe halls, with their surprisingly magnificent treasures will certainly satisfy modern civilians.

Forbidden City travel tips:

The Forbidden City gained its ominous sounding sobriquet because entry was once strictly prohibited without royal authorization. A visit without that sanction would automatically cost your life.

The compound goes by several names: “Public Museum” (new official name), “Imperial City” (old official name), and “Forbidden City” (which most travelers call it).

The Forbidden City is well preserved for its age. For years, the government has been making a major effort in renovating the palace, bringing it back to its former architectural grandeur.

The Forbidden City is so expansive and complex that I recommend you reserve a minimum of a half day on your first visit just to become acquainted with it. Then return to absorb the details.

The Forbidden City measures 960 meters (3200 feet) by 750 meters (2500 feet) in size. That’s equivalent to over 20 football fields.

The palace is surrounded by a thick, 10 meter (33 foot) high defensive wall that is in turn surrounded by a moat as wide as a river.

The largest and most famous structure is the Hall of Supreme Harmony (see photo), where imperial ceremonies were held.

Some six thousand people lived in the Forbidden City. This included the emperor and his royal family, and his concubines, servants and eunuchs (who were prolific instigators of royal intrigue).

The final emperor resident was Puyi, the young male depicted in Bertolucci’s 1987 epic, “The Last Emperor.” Puyi was permanently evicted in 1924.

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