The Forbidden City in Beijing: Palace of the Son of Heaven

The Forbidden City (紫禁城, Zǐjìnchéng, “Purple Forbidden City”) in Beijing is the largest and best-preserved imperial palace complex in the world. Built between 1406 and 1420 for the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty, it served as the residence and political centre of 24 emperors — 14 of the Ming and 10 of the Qing — for more than five centuries, until the abdication of the boy-emperor Puyi in 1912. The complex occupies 72 hectares in the centre of Beijing, a rectangular walled enclosure 961 metres north-to-south and 753 metres east-to-west, surrounded by a 10-metre wall and a 52-metre moat. The broader context of imperial Chinese architecture is surveyed in our overview, and the political architecture of the empire in palaces, capital cities, and the Great Wall.

The Yongle Emperor and the Decision to Move the Capital

The Forbidden City was the product of a single decision: to move the Ming capital from Nanjing in the south to Beijing in the north. The decision was made by the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403–1424), the third Ming emperor, for strategic, political, and personal reasons. Beijing was the site of the old Yuan capital at Dadu (“Great Capital”), which the Ming had captured in 1368 but had largely abandoned. It was also a frontier city, close to the Mongol steppe. Personally, the Yongle Emperor had been the Prince of Yan, with his base in Beijing, before he seized the throne in 1402; moving the capital allowed him to consolidate his power base.

The construction of the new palace was begun in 1406 and completed in 1420, under ministers including the eunuch Wang Zhen and the architects Kuai Xiang and Lu Xiang, who had previously worked on the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing (大報恩寺琉璃塔). The official history records 100,000 artisans and a million labourers. The Yongle Emperor’s other projects — the rebuilding of the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs north of Beijing, and the Temple of Heaven — are described in palaces, capital cities, and the Great Wall.

The Layout of the Forbidden City

The plan of the Forbidden City is an extreme example of the axial, hierarchical, courtyard-based Chinese palace plan. The complex is organised on a strict north-south axis, with all the major buildings aligned along the central line and the lesser buildings arranged in symmetrical pairs to east and west. The plan is divided into two main parts: the Outer Court in the south, where the emperor held public audiences, and the Inner Court in the north, where the imperial family lived.

The Outer Court

The visitor enters from the south, through the Meridian Gate (午門, Wumen), the largest of the palace gates. The gate consists of five towers linked by walls, with a central tower that served as a watchtower and a place for proclamations. Beyond the gate, a deep courtyard leads to the Gate of Supreme Harmony (太和門, Taihemen), the entrance to the central sequence of the Outer Court.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿, Taihedian) sits at the centre of the Outer Court. It is the largest single building in the Forbidden City, a single-storey timber hall raised on a three-tiered white marble platform about 8 metres high. The hall is 35 metres wide, 28 metres deep, and 35 metres tall to the tip of its roof, with a massive hipped-and-gabled roof covered in yellow glazed tiles and supported by a sophisticated system of dougong brackets. The hall was used for the most important state ceremonies: coronations, imperial weddings, the announcement of the emperor’s birthday, and the reception of foreign envoys.

Behind the Hall of Supreme Harmony stand the Hall of Central Harmony (中和殿, Zhonghedian) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿, Baohedian). The Hall of Central Harmony is a small, square hall used by the emperor as a resting place before and after ceremonies. The Hall of Preserving Harmony was used for imperial examinations in the late Ming and early Qing.

The Inner Court

The Inner Court, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is a separate sequence of three palaces: the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮, Qianqinggong), the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤寧宮, Kunninggong), and the Hall of Union (交泰殿, Jiaotidian). The Palace of Heavenly Purity was the residence of the Ming emperors and, after the Yongzheng reign, the audience hall of the Qing emperors. The Palace of Earthly Tranquility was the residence of the empress. The Hall of Union was used for imperial ceremonies.

Behind the Inner Court, the northern half of the Forbidden City is given over to the Imperial Garden (御花園, Yuhuayuan), a small, dense garden of pines, cypresses, and rockeries. To the east and west of the Inner Court are the Six Palaces (六宮, Liugong) of the imperial concubines, the Hall of Mental Cultivation (養心殿, Yangxindian) — which became the principal residence of the Qing emperors from the Yongzheng reign onward — and various offices, libraries, and workshops.

The Daily Life of the Imperial Palace

The Forbidden City was a self-contained city, with its own workshops, granaries, treasuries, archives, schools, and households. At its peak in the eighteenth century, the palace was home to more than 10,000 people: the emperor, his empress, his concubines, his children, the eunuch corps, the palace maids, the imperial guards, the chefs, the eunuch officials, the artisans, and the scholars of the imperial library. The eunuch corps in particular was huge: in the late Ming, the Forbidden City housed more than 10,000 eunuchs.

The emperor’s day was highly ritualised. He rose early, before dawn, and was dressed by eunuch attendants. He held court in the morning, received officials, and read reports. He took meals in private, served by eunuchs. He worked in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, signing documents and meeting with his ministers. He slept in the Palace of Heavenly Purity or, after 1735, the Hall of Mental Cultivation. The empress and the senior concubines had their own palaces, and the emperor visited them according to a strict schedule.

The Forbidden City was also the centre of the Chinese government. The Grand Council, the chief policy-making body of the Qing state, met in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. The Imperial Archives, the imperial printing office, the Imperial Medical Academy, the Imperial Astrological Bureau, and the workshops for porcelain, lacquer, and textiles were all housed within the walls.

The Rediscovery of the Forbidden City

The Forbidden City was closed to the general public throughout the imperial period. No commoner could enter its gates without an imperial summons, and the gates were guarded around the clock by the Nine Gates Imperial Guard, an elite military unit. The red walls, the moat, and the height of the gate-towers gave it an air of mystery that the Manchu and Han Chinese governments deliberately cultivated.

The fall of the Qing in 1912 ended this seclusion. The Republic of China allowed the abdicated emperor Puyi to remain in the Inner Court until 1924, when he was expelled by the warlord Feng Yuxiang. The Outer Court was opened to the public in 1914 as the Palace Museum (故宫博物院), and the whole complex became the Palace Museum in 1925. The museum’s collection, formed from the imperial collections of paintings, bronzes, jades, ceramics, books, and documents, was the largest and most important in China.

The Palace Museum survived the wars of the twentieth century in remarkable condition. The Japanese occupation of Beijing from 1937 to 1945 saw the most valuable items evacuated to the south; the Nationalist government moved much of the collection to Taiwan in 1949, where it formed the basis of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Since 1949, the Palace Museum has been the most-visited museum complex in China, with more than 17 million visitors in 2018. The Forbidden City was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Palaces, Capital Cities, and the Great Wall — the broader context of imperial Chinese political architecture
Chinese Architecture and Engineering — the comprehensive overview
The Layout of Tang Chang’an — the earlier canonical capital
The Construction of the Grand Canal — the canal that supplied the capital
Chinese Emperors of the Imperial Era — the rulers who lived here
The Ming Dynasty: Restoration and Reconsolidation — the dynasty that built the palace