Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is called Zijinchéng, or Gùgōng, in Chinese.

The Forbidden City was the emperors’ palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The area within the walls is 7.7 million square feet and there are 800 buildings with a total of 8000 rooms. The Forbidden City is the world’s largest collection of preserved ancient buildings and is on UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Forbidden City is located in the center of Beijing, just north of Tiananmen Square. There are two entrances for tourists, one from Tiananmen Square and one on the north side near Beihai Park.

The Forbidden City is restored thoroughly and it takes a lot of time. Many parts inside are blocked for tourists but there is still a lot to see. They do have 8000 rooms… They say it takes 10 years for the workers to repair through the whole area and when they are done, it is time to start over again.

The project of the Forbidden City started in 1406 and it took 14 years for 200,000 Chinese workers to finish it. All the soil they got from digging the moat was put in a big pile outside the north exit. It became a big hill called Jingshan. When the last emperor Puyi left his throne in 1912, it was the end for the city as the imperial palace. Until then, there had been 24 different emperors living inside.