The Palace Museum was once an imperial residential area located in the center of Beijing and was called the Forbidden City before the collapse of the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912), and 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties resided in it for over 500 years. It is the essence of Han nationality’s palace buildings in ancient China and one of the largest and best preserved wooden structure building groups existing in the whole world. The Forbidden City has more than 70 palaces of all sizes and over 9,000 rooms, with Taihe, Zhonghe and Baohe Palaces located in the center.

The Forbidden City was initially built from 1406, the fourth year of Emperor Yongle’s reign (Emperor Yongle’s name is Zhu Di, the fourth son of the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty and the third emperor of the dynasty), with reference to the Palace Museum of Nanjing built during Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s reign, and was finally accomplished in 1420, the 18th year of Emperor Yongle’s reign, covering an area of 720,000 square meters, with 150,000 square meters being as its construction area. It is a rectangular city, stretching up to 753 meters from the east to the west and up to 961 meters from the south to the north, enclosed by about 10-meter-tall walls and surrounded by a 52-meter-wide moat. This is indeed a city inside a city. All these buildings are built with wood, yellow gilded tiles and translucent and white stone cushions.

The Forbidden City is esteemed as the best among other five palaces including the Forbidden City, Versailles, Buckingham Palace, the White House and the Kremlin, listed as one of the World Heritage and one of themost highly appreciated tourist attractionsin China. On June 13, 2015, the Palace Museum administration tried the policy of only allowing 80,000 visitors to enter it by buying their tickets with their real names.

Source: translated from baike.baidu.com.