The Forbidden City was constructed from 1406 to 1420, and was the former Chinese imperial palace and winter residence of the Emperor of China from the Ming dynasty (since the Yongle Emperor) to the end of the Qing dynasty, between 1420 and 1924. The Forbidden City served as the home of Chinese emperors and their households and 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 were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987.
The complex consists of 980 buildings, encompassing 9,999 rooms and covering 720,000 m2 (72 ha)/178 acres. The palace exemplifies the opulence of the residences of the Chinese emperor and the traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. It is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Since 2012, the Forbidden City has seen an average of 14 million visitors annually, and received more than 19 million visitors in 2019. In 2018, the Forbidden City’s market value was estimated at 70 billion USD, making it both the world’s most valuable palace and the most valuable piece of real estate anywhere in the world.
The Forbidden City in Beijing is one of the largest and most well-preserved wooden structures in the world. It was listed as the first batch of national key cultural relics in 1961.
Seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson comes home from school to find that his father, a CBC news cameraman, wants to take him to China's capital, Beijing. Once there, Alex finds himself on his own in Tian An Men Square as desperate students fight the Chinese army for their freedom. Separated from his father and carrying illegal videotapes, Alex must trust the students to help him escape. Closely based on eyewitness accounts of the massacre in Beijing, Forbidden City is a powerful and frightening...
The Forbidden City
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
2018
*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Located in the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City served as the palace for the emperor of China from 1420 to 1912 CE, a period encompassing the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was home to the celestial leaders of China, men that possessed the Mandate of Heaven. A total of 24 emperors lived and ruled from the vast and magnificent complex for almost 500 years, until the last Chinese dynasty was overthrown in...
Two Years in the Forbidden City
e-artnow.
2018
Two Years in the Forbidden City is the memoir by Princess Der Ling about her life in the service of Empress Dowager Cixi, where she was the First lady-in-waiting, as well as interpreter for her when she received foreign visitors. The book provides unique insights into life at the Manchu court and the character of the Empress, a world that ended abruptly with the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu or Qing dynasty.
Splendors of China's Forbidden City
Offering an unprecedented insight into one of the most glittering courts in history, this sumptuous book brings together some China's priceless national treasures, housed in Beijing's royal palace complex, the Forbidden City, and collected by Emperor Qianlong during his sixty-year reign from 1736 to 1795.
Forbidden City
Ballantine Books.
2022
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong’s protégée and lover—and a heroine of the Cultural Revolution—in this “masterful new novel” (The Washington Post) “A new classic about China’s Cultural Revolution . . . Think Succession, but add death and mayhem to the palace intrigue. . . . Ambitious and impressive.”—San Francisco Chronicle On the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution and her sixteenth birthday, Mei dreams of becoming a model revolutionary. When the...
Empresses of China's Forbidden City
"Empresses of China's Forbidden City: 1644-1912 accompanies the exhibition of the same title organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the Freer]Sackler, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, and the Palace Museum, Beijing, China."
Twilight in the Forbidden City
Cambridge University Press.
2011
Johnson's account of the last years of the Chinese Qing dynasty provides a unique Western perspective on this historic period.
Elephants and Golden Thrones
Harry N. Abrams.
2008
With contributions from the Palace Museum (the official museum of the Forbidden City), this is a definitive guide to one of the wonders of the world.
