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The Forbidden City or Forbidden Palace (), located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing, was the imperial palace during the mid-Ming and the Qing Dynasties. Known now as the Palace Museum (), its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters, 800 buildings and more than 8,000 rooms. 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 1987 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.
Although no longer occupied by royalty, the Forbidden City remains a symbol of Chinese sovereignty and the image of its entrance gate appears on the seal of the People's Republic of China. The Palace Museum is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. Recently, the site has been under much renovation which has limited visitors to the main courtyards and a few gardens.
The Palace Museum in the Forbidden City should not be confused with the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Both museums derive from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.
Names
The Forbidden City is known by many names. In Chinese, the site is most commonly known as Gu Gong (故宫), or the "Former Palace". (The word "Gu Gong" is also a generic name referring to all former palaces, another prominent example being the former Imperial Palaces (Mukden Palace) in Shenyang.) The museum which is located in these buildings is known as the "Palace Museum".
The name by which the site is most commonly known in English is "The Forbidden City", a translation of Zijin Cheng (紫禁城), which literally means "Purple Forbidden City". This is a reference to the fact that commoners were not allowed inside the imperial palaces.
History
Forbidden city 07.jpg|thumb|300px|The Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿) at the centre of the Forbidden City]] The site where the Forbidden City stands today was part of the imperial city during the Yuan dynasty. When the Ming Dynasty succeeded it, the first Hongwu Emperor moved the capital to Nanjing and ordered that the Mongol palaces be razed in 1369. His son, Zhu Di, was created Prince of Yan with seat in Beijing. A princely palace was built on the site. In 1402, Zhu Li usurped the throne and became the Yongle Emperor. He moved the capital back to Beijing.
The construction of the Forbidden City started in 1406 and took 14 years and an estimated 200,000 men. The principal axis of the new palace sits to the east of the Yuan Dynasty palace, a design intended to place the Yuan palace in the western or "kill" position. Soil excavated during construction of the moat was piled up to the north of the palace to create an artificial hill, the Jingshan hill.
From its completion in 1420 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 Pu Yi, 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. Having been the imperial palace for some five centuries, the Forbidden City houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities. In 1947, after they had been moved from one location to another inside mainland China for many years (most recently to hide from the Japanese in the war), Chiang Kai-shek ordered many of the artifacts within the Forbidden City 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 with the events of the Cultural Revolution on the mainland.
Layout
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. The Forbidden Palace is reputed to have a total of 9,999.5 rooms. However, according to surveying by the Palace Museum, there are about 8,600 existing rooms. (The majority of buildings in the Forbidden City have an odd number of rooms, distributed symmetrically about an axis. However, the Imperial Library (文渊阁) had six rooms as a charm against fire, because the number six is associated with water in astrology. So that the building does not look out of place, the sixth room was built very small, hence the half-room.)
The wall has a gate on each side. At the southern end is the Meridian Gate (technically, Tiananmen Gate is not part of the Forbidden City); to the north is the Gate of Divine Might, which faces Jingshan Park. The distance between these two gates is 960 meters, while the distance between the gates in the east and west walls is 750 meters. The walls are thick and squat and were specifically designed to withstand attacks by cannons.
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 (太和殿), itself fronted by the Gate of Supreme Harmony (太和門). Apart from ceremony, the Outer Court also houses the imperial library, archives, and lantern storage. The Inner Court includes the northern, eastern, and western parts of the Forbidden City, and centres on another three halls used for day-to-day affairs of state. The most important among these is the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宫). The Inner Court is where the Emperor worked and lived with his family, eunuchs and maid-servants.
At the northern end of the Forbidden City is the imperial garden. It is home to some relatively old trees, most between 100 and 300 years of age.
Outside the main gate to the Forbidden City, the Meridian Gate faces a square where imperial corporal punishments were sometimes carried out. To the south of that square stands Tiananmen Gate. Today, Tiananmen Gate in front of the Forbidden City is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the center and two placards to the left and right. The left one reads "中华人民共和国万岁"(; "Long Live the People's Republic of China"), while the right placard reads "世界人民大团结万岁"(; "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples"). The phrasing has great symbolic meaning, as the phrase used for long live, like the palace itself, was traditionally reserved for Emperors of China, but is now available to the common people.
Major buildings include:
- Meridian Gate
- Tiananmen Gate
- Gate of Supreme Harmony
- Gate of Divine Might
- Hall of Supreme Harmony
- Palace of Heavenly Purity
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.
The individual buildings within the Forbidden City housed many important members of the Chinese aristocracy. The famous national civil service exams were given inside one of these buildings. The royal color was yellow, and that color dominates the rooftops. On each corner of the roofs, there are small statuettes, the number of which designated the power of the person living within the building. The number 9 was reserved for the emperor. Only one building has 10 statuettes at each corner
Model displays in the United States
Forbidden Gardens, a privately-funded outdoor museum in Katy, Texas has a one to twenty scale model of the Forbidden City. Palace buildings and occupants are displayed under a 40,000 square foot (4,000 m²) pavilion. Cutaway models in a separate Architecture Room show details of palace roof and beam construction.
The museum's sponsor is a Chinese businessman whose goal is to share his country's history, but the museum may have also been sponsored by the mainland government.
The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington is home to another model of the Forbidden City. The Theatre immitates three ancient Chinese architectural achievements located in Beijing: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. A nearly exact replica of the dome from the throne room of the Imperial palace in Bejing's Forbidden City grases the 5th Avenue Theatre’s ceiling. Authentic dragons and hoho birds scatter the walls of the theatre with an authentic Chinese quality.
Image gallery
Miscellaneous
- The Last Emperor (1987) was the first feature film ever authorized by the government of the People's Republic of China to film in the Forbidden City.
- Giacomo Puccini's opera, Turandot, about the story of a Chinese princess, was performed inside the Forbidden City for the first time in 1998.
- A stage in the video game Dynasty Warriors 3 for the Playstation 2 features architecture reminiscent of the Forbidden City. Called "the Siege of He Fei Castle", this is the final battle for Wu against Wei, featuring characters from real history and the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms such as Sima Yi and Sun Quan. The layout and architecture of the castle is very similar to that of the Forbidden City. For example, along the southern walls are five gate arches, with three in the centre and one each to the east and west, which is similar to the Meridian Gate. Like the Meridian Gate, the central arch does not open (in the Meridian Gate the central arch is only opened for the Emperor). The design of the rest of the stage, particularly the placement and purpose of the other gates, is also reminiscent of the Forbidden City, and includes in the innermost Wei stronghold a replica of the Hall of Supreme Harmony set atop an elevated structure.
- The musician Yanni perfomed inside the Forbidden City to an audience of 120 million in 1997.
- In 2004, the French musician Jean Michel Jarre perfomed the first live concert in the Forbidden City, accompanied by 260 musicians as part of the "Year of France in China" festivities.
Reference
- Ho and Bronson 2004. Splendors of China's Forbidden City. ISBN 1-85894-258-6.
See also
External links
- Palace Museum official site
- ForbiddenCityChina.com Over 200 high quality photographs (2005-2006); maps; guide.
- Photos Gallery
- Links
- Forbidden City Satellite Map 1 & 2
- Palace Museum Official Map
- World heritage virtual tour via immersive panoramas
- Forbidden City Introduction
- Forbidden City Guide
- Satellite photograph of the Forbidden City
- Panoramic map of the Forbidden city
- National Palace Museum official website (Taipei City, Taiwan)
- China Museums
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