Forbidden City (Palace Museum) Tickets & Tours

The Palace Museum in Beijing is the most worth visiting art museum in the world. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Opening Times:

1 April  - 31 October

1 November - 31 March

The Forbidden City is located in the center of Beijing City, also called Zijin Cheng which means "Purple Forbidden City". It was built from 1406 to 1420,and consists of 980 buildings with an area more than 180 acres.It was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty(1420-1912).It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years.The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere.Since 1925 the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artefacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Forbidden City covers an area of 180 acres and consists of 980 buildings. The style of the Forbidden City is typical of Chinese palatial architecture, with bilateral symmetry, construction from wood and use of gold and red imperial colours. There is also a clear reference to dragons in the Forbidden City, with the dragon representing the Emperor.

There are many buildings located in the Forbidden City with some of the most famous including the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest structure in the Forbidden City used for ceremonial occasions; the Hall of Mental Cultivation, from where the Emperors ruled; and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, where the Emperor would hold banquets for esteemed guests. There is also an Imperial Garden located within the Forbidden City, which was a private retreat for the Emperor's family and is typical of Chinese garden style.

The Forbidden City, like Buckingham Palace in the UK, is the central heart of Beijing's royal history in China and is at the forefront of Chinese imperial architecture in Beijing.