The Forbidden City is a palace complex in central Beijing, China. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings[2] and covers 72 hectares (over 180 acres).[3][4] The palace exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[5] and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere.
Some of the statements about the city are:
• Construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers
• Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood found in the jungles of south-western China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing.
• The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" baked paving bricks from Suzhou
• The Forbidden City is a rectangle, with 961 metres (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 metres (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of romos
• The Forbidden City was designed to be the centre of the ancient, walled city of Beijing. It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City. The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its south lies the Outer City.
• From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming dynasty. In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process.
• After being the home of 24 emperors – 14 of the Ming dynasty and 10 of the Qing dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China
• The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925
• In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.
• This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public, as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
• After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal. During the Cultural Revolution, however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city
• The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties"
