Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is a palace complex in Beijing, China, that was used as the seat of the emperors of China from 1420 to 1911 CE. The sprawling compound contains nearly 1,000 buildings with almost 10,000 rooms, as well as numerous courtyards and gardens. Walls more than thirty feet high and a moat surround the entire complex.

Political unrest in 1911 forced China's last emperor out of the Forbidden City, which never again served as an imperial palace. The Forbidden City was converted into the Palace Museum in 1925. This World Heritage Site remained a popular tourist destination into the twenty-first century, with millions of people visiting its collection of 1.5 million historical artifacts every year.

Background

The Forbidden City was built in the early 1400s by order of Zhu Di, an emperor of China's Ming dynasty. After assuming the throne in 1402, Zhu Di moved the capital of the Chinese empire from the southern city of Nanjing to the northern city of Beiping, which he renamed Beijing, meaning "northern capital." The change of imperial capitals was a massive infrastructural undertaking, as Beijing at the time was not as urbanized as Nanjing. About 1 million workers were employed to remove trees, make bricks, and transport supplies for the new capital.

Construction of the Forbidden City itself, which was to serve as the imperial palace complex, began in 1406 and was completed in 1420. The compound was located in the center of Beijing and was surrounded by high walls and a moat. The interior was a massive space, consisting of 980 separate buildings containing a total of nearly ten thousand rooms. The buildings themselves were painted primarily in red, while their roofs were mostly gold. Interspersed among the palace buildings were courtyards, gardens, terraces, and stairways, all positioned symmetrically throughout the complex to flaunt an aesthetically perfect balance of infrastructure and open space.

To emphasize its grandeur as the palace of the emperor, the Forbidden City was aligned along Earth's north-south axis with the North Star directly overhead, which symbolized that the emperor of China was the son of heaven. The southern part of the palace, the outer court, contained the Hall of Supreme Harmony. This was the largest building in the complex, the place where the emperor managed imperial business. The emperors themselves lived in the Forbidden City's inner court in the northern part of the compound.

The emperor shared his residence with his wife, family, harem of concubines, and thousands of servants. These were the only people permitted to enter the Forbidden City, so named for its exclusive nature. Common men could become servants in the city only by becoming eunuchs, individuals who have had their reproductive organs removed. The eunuchs then toiled in the city for many years before being trusted enough to work in close proximity to the emperors or their families.

The emperors of the Ming dynasty ruled China from the Forbidden City for the next two centuries. In 1644, a rebel army overran Beijing and the Forbidden City. Because of this, Zhu Youjian, the last Ming emperor, committed suicide. The remaining Ming loyalists, however, allied with a force of Manchu people from Manchuria and retook Beijing. Later in 1644, the Manchus established the Qing dynasty, which would rule China until 1912. The early Qing rulers rebuilt Beijing and the Forbidden City and allowed the commoners to practice Ming customs alongside Manchu traditions.

The Forbidden City underwent various changes over the next two-and-a-half centuries. Emperor Qianlong's Palace of Tranquil Longevity (Ningshou gong, also known as the Qianlong Garden), was built in the northeast part of the Forbidden City between 1771 and 1776. Qianlong had commissioned Ningshou gong for his retirement retreat, but never resided there. In the early 1900s, the Forbidden City was plundered by an invading army. In 1911, a political revolution in China forced Puyi, the five-year-old emperor, to flee the imperial palace. He abdicated the throne in 1912. This marked the end of the Qing dynasty and of imperial China. The Palace Museum opened in the Forbidden City in 1925.

Forbidden City Today

The Forbidden City was listed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1987. In the twenty-first century, the city was among the most visited World Heritage Sites in the world, attracting millions of visitors a year. About 175,000 tourists visited the Forbidden City in a single day in 2013, setting a world record. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Forbidden City boasted 19 million visitors annually. After the pandemic, visitors soared again, with daily visitor counts reaching as high as 22,000 in 2023.

The Beijing government upkeeps the Forbidden City and the Palace Museum. Most of the complex appears as it did during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The walls surrounding the city are thirty-two feet high, and the moat is 171 feet wide. The entire palace compound stands on 178 acres, making it the largest museum in China.

For many years, the Beijing government struggled to install in the Palace Museum the various technological features that were standard in other museums, such as sufficient lighting, air conditioning, and security and fire-safety measures because these installations, if not done correctly, would have compromised the safety of some of the museum's centuries-old artifacts. However, a five-year renovation project eventually installed all these features.

The project included the modernization of the interior of the Forbidden City's Wu Men, or the Meridian Gate. The need to protect the building's fragile architecture from damage required the renovators to encase the visitor-accessible areas of the building in glass. Tourists enter the massive structure through glass doors and then proceed into a dimly lit hall. The building's original ceiling is protected by a glass ceiling. The temperature and moisture of the air above the glass is monitored closely to preserve the original ceiling.

The floor of the Meridian Gate Museum is also a modern addition. It is suspended above the original brick floor to protect the architecture. Artifacts encased in glass are scattered throughout the hall.  

In 2000, the Palace Museum and World Monuments Fund began collaborating on the restoration of the Qianlong Garden, which had been closed for almost a century. It reopened to the public in September 2025. 

Bibliography

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Jian, Li, et al. Forbidden City: Imperial Treasures from the Palace Museum, Beijing. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2014.

Moritsugu, Ken. “A Mix of Science and Tradition Helps Restore Relics in China’s Forbidden City.” AP News, 23 Mar. 2025, apnews.com/article/china-beijing-forbidden-city-restoration-relics-0a5866bc4735d65861abfa94a48b2578. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

“Palace Museum Reopens Qianlong Garden with Exhibition on Its History and Restoration.” The Palace Museum, 30 Sept. 2025, intl.dpm.org.cn/news/detail/127884.html. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

Sala, Ilaria Maria. “Forbidding City: Trouble in China’s Imperial Residence.” Art News, 31 July 2013, www.artnews.com/2013/07/31/trouble-in-forbidden-city-of-china/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

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Yi, Zhang. “Major Imperial House in Forbidden City under Renovation.” China Daily, 11 June 2016, www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2016-08/22/content_26566337.htm. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.