Forbidden City Part 1

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, which is called the palace museum now, occupies the central part of Beijing municipality ad was the imperial palace of Ming and Qing dynasties. Its construction began in 1406, so it has a history of nearly 600 years. Over the years after its completion, 24 emperors ruled the whole country from here for nearly 500 years.

With many halls and pavilions, marble railings and steps, red walls and yellow tiles, the Forbidden city looks resplendent and magnificent. It occupies an area of over 720,000 sq mts with 9,000 bays of halls and rooms. The construction area amounts to about 150,000 sq mts and the surrounding walls are 10 mts high and 2428 mts long wih 4 splendid corner towers standing separately at four corners of the City. A moat, which is 52 mts wide and 3800 mts long surrounds outside the walls. Thus the city was made a strongly fortified castle.

Tian An Men (The gate of heavenly peace). It is the main entrance of imperial city in both Ming and Qing dynasties. Where the emperor promulgated his edict. Tian An Men is tall and solemn and its rostrum looks majestic with its upturned caves, carved beams and painted rafters, and yellow tiles and red walls. It is now the Symbol of new China.

Tai he Hall (the emperor's audience hall). It is the place where the emperor was enthroned, promulgated his edict or held important ceremonies. It s built on three groups of huge and beautifully carved marble terraces. The hall is 37 mts high and has 55 rooms, the total area being 2377 sq mts. It is the largest palace of wood structure extant in china.

My friends: Sheela, Kapil, Kamal, Nitin, Devan, Sudarsan, Mukul

Place: Forbidden City, Beijing, China. My only words about this place is "Its huge". Will update a short note on Forbidden City sometime this week... Enjoy the pictures. On request, the notes have been added for most of the pictures. :-)