The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is also known as the Imperial Palace Museum or Gugong. It was the place where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties carried out their administration and lived. Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City is rectangular in shape and it is the largest palace complex in the world.

It covers an area of 74 hectares and includes 9,999 buildings. There are four unique and delicate structured corner towers overlooking the city inside and outside on the four corners. The City has been divided into two parts, the northern half or the Outer Court where emperors took care of the affairs of the kingdom, and the southern half, or the Inner Court where they lived with their royal family. Being the royal palace for around 500 years the Forbidden City houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities. It is also listed by the UN as World Cultural Heritage.

The Forbidden City is also called Purple Forbidden City. Earlier in the feudal society, emperors had supreme power, so their residence was certainly a forbidden place for the commoners. Purple was the symbolic color of the North Star believed to be the center of the cosmos, meaning the emperor’s residence to be the center of the cosmos or in the hierarchy.

History
Nearly 600 hundred years old, The Forbidden City was originally planned and constructed from 1407 to 1420. The principles of Feng Shui (the ancient Chinese system of geomancy) controlled the process of its construction. It is believed that over 100,000 craftsmen and one million laborers were involved in the construction of the 9,999 rooms and halls. The entire complex covers 250 acres.

Yellow is the symbol of the royal family and therefore it is the dominant color in the Forbidden City. Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties from 1420 to 1911 held court and lived within the walls of the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum. Some treasures remain from the Japanese invasion, and from the Nationalist Chinese taking the most valuable ones to Taiwan in 1949. Those are now on display in the National Museum of Taiwan. The last emperor, Puyi, remained living here for many years after the 1911 Revolution.