Overall Layout

The Forbidden City is surrounded by 12-meter-tall and 3,400-meter-long palace walls, which form a rectangular city, with a 52-meter-wide moat around it. Each and every palace and hall of the Forbidden City consists of wood, yellow gilded tiles and translucent and white stone cushions, decorated by splendid color paintings. The Forbidden City has four gates, respectively named the Meridian Gate, Donghua Gate, Xihua Gate and the Gate of Divine Might (North Gate), opposite which is Jingshan (a small hill), where numerous pine and cypress trees are planted. The hill is seen as the screen of the buildings in the Forbidden City.

Inner Court

The back half of the Forbidden City is called Inner Court, which has a gate named Heavenly Purity Gate or Qianqing Gate, sandwiched by gilded screen walls. Behind the gate are hidden the Three Back Palaces.

The Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union and Peace and Palace of Earthly Tranquility are the center of the inner court, with the Six Eastern Palaces and Six Western Palaces on the two wings, where the emperor usually dealt with daily government affairs and empresses lived. The back half of the Forbidden City differs from the front half in building style. The appearance of the front half is solemn, grand and magnificent, and this symbolizes the supreme power of the emperor. The back half looks lively, attached with yards and gardens.

At the back of the Inner Court are double eave hip roofs. Kunning Palace was the empress’s resting palace before Emperor Yongzheng during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with a warm chamber on either side, and was changed to a place to worship gods after Emperor Yongzheng. The western warm chamber was used as a worshiping site for Shaman, while the eastern warm chamber was the wedding room for emperors. For example, Emperor Kangxi, Tongzhi and Guangxu held their weddings here.

Source: Translated from baike.baidu.com