The Forbidden City in Beijing was the imperial palace complex for Chinese emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has 9,999 rooms, surrounded by a wall and moat. The complex is laid out according to feng shui principles and is home to the Palace Museum, which has over 1 million works of art.
The Forbidden City is the imperial palace complex in Beijing where Chinese emperors lived and ruled during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and houses museum exhibits of Chinese artwork and relics. The complex was designed very carefully both in terms of architecture and location, and still retains most of its original buildings.
Characteristics
The complex is surrounded by a wall about 30 feet (10 meters) high and a moat nearly 20 feet (6 meters) deep. The walls enclose an area of almost 8 million square feet, or 168 acres (679,872 square meters) – about the size of 140 football fields. The complex houses 9,999 rooms; nine is considered lucky in Chinese numerology. It consists of two main areas: the outer court, where government was held; and the inner court, which was the home of the imperial family. The palace got its name because it was forbidden for commoners or even uninvited nobility to enter its sacred precincts.
The walls of the buildings in the complex are red and their roofs yellow, with the exception of the roof of the library, which is black, and the roof of the Crown Prince’s residence, which is green. A specific shade of yellow was the imperial color and was forbidden to those who were not members of the imperial family. Everything in the emperor’s personal quarters was yellow, including his clothes and bedding. The complex is laid out on the north-south axis of ancient Beijing and is considered one of the best areas ever designed in terms of feng shui, a practice of arranging buildings and objects to attract positive energy and good luck.
History
The largest royal complex in the world, it was built over a 14-year period, from 1407 to 1420, during the Ming dynasty. It was the seat and center of government for 24 emperors of China up to the end of the Ming dynasty and throughout the Qing dynasty, until the overthrow of imperial rule in the early part of the 20th century. It was home to huge numbers of people, up to 20 in the height of the Qing Dynasty, including the royal family, concubines, servants, guards and civil servants.
The last royal inhabitant of the Forbidden City was Pu Yi, who was chosen to succeed his adoptive grandmother, Empress Dowager Cixi. He took the throne at the age of three in 1909, but lost most of his power to a revolution when he was five. He and the royal family continued to live in the imperial compound until they were forced to flee social upheaval in 1924. Director Bernardo Bertolucci made a film about his life in 1987, which was filmed on location.
After Puyi left the city, it was evacuated and most of the valuables were removed for safekeeping. Many of them were eventually smuggled to Taiwan when the Communist Party of China (CPC) defeated the Kuomintang (KMT) and left mainland China. Portions of the city wall were demolished in the 1950s to make the open area now called Tiananmen Square; named after the Tiananmen Gate in the palace complex, the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The entire complex is expected to be restored by 2020, with most of the restoration done by hand using traditional craft techniques.
museo
The Palace Museum has over 1 million works of art spanning 5 millennia, including paintings, calligraphy, jade sculptures, lacquer pieces, ceramics, and bronzes. It also has collections of antique toys, clocks and musical instruments, as well as artefacts from daily life in the imperial complex. It is the largest museum in China and can welcome over 80,000 visitors a day.
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