Wonder of the world
The walled palace of the Ming and Qing emperors at the heart of Beijing, home to 24 of them from 1420 until the last emperor was made to leave in 1924. Its timber halls stand on white marble terraces; the largest is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
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The Forbidden City is the imperial palace complex in the center of the Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of twenty-four Ming and Qing dynasty Emperors and was the center of political power in China from 1420 to 1924. The palace is now administered by the Palace Museum and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The Forbidden City is one of the most famous palaces in all of Chinese history and is the largest preserved royal palace complex still standing in the world.
Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor was filmed inside the Forbidden City in 1987 (and was the first Western production to do so).
The Forbidden City was constructed from 1406 to 1420 and was the imperial palace and winter residence of the Emperor of China from the Ming dynasty (since the Yongle Emperor in 1420) to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1924. Serving as the home of Chinese emperors and their households, the Forbidden City was the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government for over 500 years. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts was built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The complex claims to consist of 9,999 rooms in total, although experts have shown in recent years that the number amounts to 8,886, covering 72 ha (720,000 m2; 180 acres). The palace exemplifies the opulence of the residences of the Chinese emperor and the traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and it has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and beyond. Since 2012, the Forbidden City has seen an average of 14 million visitors annually, even receiving more than 19 million visitors in 2019.
It was included in the first list of national priority protected sites that China produced in 1961, and UNESCO recognizes it as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. The palace is extremely important to the Chinese public and nation, who often view it as a cultural and heavenly link to their ancestors.
The palace gained its name from its enormous scale and severely restricted access to all but the emperor, the imperial family, and their eunuch servants; hence the term "Forbidden City" emerged. The punishment for unauthorised entry to the palace was immediate execution. The common English name "Forbidden City" is a translation of the Chinese name Zijincheng (紫禁城; lit. 'Purple Forbidden City'), which first formally appeared in 1576. Another English name of similar origin is "Forbidden Palace", though "city" is much closer to the original Chinese meaning.
The name "Zijincheng" has significance on many levels. Zi, or "purple", refers to the North Star, which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrology was the heavenly abode of the Jade Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure (紫微垣; Zǐwēiyuán), was the realm of the Jade Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin refers to a prohibition or taboo. Cheng originally meant a castle, fortress, or fortification, but in modern Chinese, the character means city.
Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gugong (故宮), which means the "Former Palace". The museum that is based in these buildings is known as the "Palace Museum" (故宮博物院; Gùgōng Bówùyùan).
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City was also known as Danei (大内) or "Palace City" (宮城; Gōngchéng).
When the Hongwu Emperor's son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 on what would become the Forbidden City.
Construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers. Material used included whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood (楠木; nánmù) found in the jungles of southwestern China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing. The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" (金磚; jīnzhuān), specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou.
From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming dynasty. In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process.
By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing dynasty. The Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings to emphasise "harmony" rather than "supremacy", made the nameplates bilingual (Chinese and Manchu), and introduced shamanist elements to the palace.
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war. In 1900, Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year.
After being the home of 24 emperors – 14 of the Ming dynasty and 10 of the Qing dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, until he was evicted after a coup in 1924. The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925.
In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City. Part of the collection returned at the end of World War II, but the other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 under orders of Chiang Kai-shek, whose ruling political party Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal. There were multiple plans to demolish the palace complex and reutilize the site; one plan even involved making it the seat of the new Communist government. During the Cultural Revolution, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city.
In 1987, the Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties", due to its significant place in the development of Chinese architecture and culture.
In the early 21st century, the Palace Museum carried out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all buildings in the Forbidden City to their pre-1911 state, with the goal that 76% of the palace would be open to the public by 2020. As a result of that project, the Shoukang Palace was officially opened to the public in 2013, after initially being displayed in its original state. A sculpture museum was opened in the Cining Palace in 2015. Also opened in 2015 were the precincts around Cining Palace, the Yanyin Building and the Donghua Gate.
5 November 2024 marked the 100-year anniversary since the expulsion of the last Emperor of China, Puyi, from the palace by the republican forces led by Feng Yuxiang.
The Forbidden City is a rectangle, measuring 961 m (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 m (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of rooms. A common myth states that there are 9,999 rooms including antechambers, based on oral tradition, but it is not supported by survey evidence.
The layout of the Forbidden City protected the imperial code of ethics as a physical installation. The courtyard was built on a massive, luxurious scale but it has the appearance of a quadrangle courtyard. The Forbidden City was designed to be the centre of the ancient, walled city of Beijing. It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City. The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its south lies the Outer City.
The Forbidden City remains important in the civic scheme of Beijing. The central north–south axis remains the central axis of Beijing. This axis extends to the south through Tiananmen Gate to Tiananmen Square, the ceremonial centre of the People's Republic of China, and on to Yongdingmen Gate. To the north, it extends through Jingshan Park to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower. This axis is not exactly aligned north–south, but is tilted by slightly more than two degrees. Researchers now believe that the axis was designed during the Yuan dynasty to be aligned with Shangdu, the other capital of their empire.
The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 m (26 ft) high city wall and a 6 m (20 ft) deep by 52 m (171 ft) wide moat. The walls are 8.62 m (28.3 ft) wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 m (21.9 ft) at the top. These walls served as both defensive walls and retaining walls for the palace. They were constructed with a rammed earth core, and surfaced with three layers of specially baked bricks on both sides, with the interstices filled with mortar.
At the four corners of the wall (fortifications dating to the 15th and 18th centuries) sit corner towers (E) with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges, reproducing the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Yellow Crane Pavilion as they appeared in Song dynasty paintings. These towers are the most visible parts of the palace to people outside the walls, and much folklore is attached to them. According to one legend, artisans could not put a corner tower back together after it was dismantled for renovations in the early Qing dynasty, and it was only rebuilt after the intervention of master carpenter Lu Ban.
The wall is pierced by a gate on each side. At the southern end is the main Meridian Gate (A) (午門; Wǔmén). To the north is the Gate of Divine Prowess (B) (神武門; Shénwǔmén), which faces Jingshan Park. The east and west gates are the East Glorious Gate (D) (東華門; Dōnghuámén) and the West Glorious Gate (C) (西華門; Xīhuámén). All gates in the Forbidden City are decorated with nine-by-nine arrays of golden door nails, except for the East Glorious Gate, which has only eight.
The Meridian Gate has two protruding wings, which form three sides of a square before it, and five gateways. The central gateway is part of the Imperial Way, a stone flagged path that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and the ancient city of Beijing itself, leading all the way from the Gate of China in the south to Jingshan Park in the north. Except for the empress on the occasion of her wedding and successful students after the Imperial examination, only the emperor could walk or ride on the Imperial Way.
Traditionally, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the Outer Court (外朝; Wàicháo) or Front Court (前朝; Qiáncháo) to the south, which was used for ceremonial purposes and the Inner Court (内廷; Nèitíng) or Back Palace (后宫; Hòugōng) to the north, which was the residence of the emperor and his family and was used for day-to-day affairs of state (the approximate dividing line shown as a red dash in the plan above). Generally, the Forbidden City has three vertical axes. The most important buildings are situated on the central north–south axis.
The Meridian Gate leads to a large square that is by the meandering Inner Golden Water River, which is crossed by five bridges. The bridges include sculpted balustrades that resemble clouds to evoke the "celestial lineage of the emperor." Beyond the square stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F) (太和門; Tàihémén). Behind that is a square from which a three-tiered white marble terrace rises: three halls stand on top of this terrace, the focus of the palace complex. From the south, these are the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿; Tàihédiàn), the Hall of Central Harmony (中和殿; Zhōnghédiàn), and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿; Bǎohédiàn).
The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, and rises some 30 m (98 ft) above the level of the surrounding square. It is the ceremonial centre of imperial power, and the largest surviving wooden structure in China. It is nine bays wide and five bays deep, with the numbers 9 and 5 being symbolically connected to the majesty of the emperor. Set into the ceiling at the centre of the hall is an intricate caisson decorated with a coiled dragon: a chandelier-like set of metal balls comes from its mouth, which is called the "Xuanyuan Mirror".
In the Ming dynasty, the emperor held court in the Hall of Supreme Harmony to discuss affairs of state. During the Qing dynasty, emperors held court far more frequently, so a less ceremonious location was used instead, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was only used for ceremonial purposes, such as enthronements, investitures, and imperial weddings.
The Hall of Central Harmony is a smaller, square hall, used by the emperor to prepare and rest before and during ceremonies. Behind it, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, was used for rehearsing ceremonies and was also the site of the final stage of the Imperial examinations. All three halls feature imperial thrones, with the largest and most elaborate one being in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Forbidden City”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.