The best season of Beijing has come. The city has so many world-renowned attractions like the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace for you to explore. However, if you only have one day schedule in Beijing, you may try this leisure tour guide.

Itinerary: Tian’anmen Square - The Forbidden City - Temple of Heaven

Tian’anmen Square

Tian’anmen Square was named after Tian’anmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace), entry to the Forbidden City. As the world's largest city square, it has great cultural significance as it was the site of several key events in Chinese history.

The square contains the Monument to the People’s Heroes and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. With the Great Hall of the People on the west, the National Museum of China and the National Museum of Chinese History on the east, as well as Zhengyangmen and the archery tower on the south, the square is magnificent with its grand symmetrical style. On both sides of Tian’anmen Square, there are Working People’s Cultural Palace and Zhongshan Park. These magnificent buildings and Tian’anmen are perfectly integrated into Tian’anmen Square, a great attraction in Beijing.

Address: West Chang’an Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing

The Forbidden City

Then move on to the Forbidden City, which has witnessed the enthronement of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties from the 15th to 20th century. It is the largest and the best preserved ancient imperial architecture complex in the world.

The Forbidden City is the supreme model in the development of ancient Chinese palaces, providing insight into the social development of late dynastic China. The layout and spatial arrangement inherits and embodies the traditional characteristic of urban planning and palace construction in ancient China, featuring a central axis, symmetrical design and layout of outer court at the front and inner court at the rear and the inclusion of additional landscaped courtyards deriving from the Yuan city layout.

Add: No. 4, Jingshan Front Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing

The Temple of Heaven

Continue your tour to visit the Temple of Heaven. As the largest largest existing complex of ancient sacrificial buildings in China, the Temple of Heaven occupies an area of 2.73 million square meters, three times the area of the Forbidden City. Built in 1420 together with the Forbidden City during the Ming Dynasty, it was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.

The Temple of Heaven is a dignified complex of fine cult buildings set in gardens and surrounded by historic pine woods. The principle buildings include the Altar of Prayer for Good Harvests, Imperial Vault of Heaven and Circular Mound Altar. In its overall layout and that of its individual buildings, it symbolizes the relationship between earth and heaven – the human world and God's world – which stands at the heart of Chinese cosmogony, and also the special role played by the emperors within that relationship.

Add: No. 1 A, Tiantan Road, Dongcheng District, Beijing