![]() Chinese media also took notice of a pair of souvenir shops that refused to admit Chinese citizens in order to price-gouge foreign customers in 2006. A Starbucks store, which opened in 2000, sparked objections and eventually closed on July 13, 2007. In recent years, the presence of commercial enterprises in the Forbidden City has become controversial. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO as the “Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties”, due to its significant place in the development of Chinese architecture and culture. During the Cultural Revolution, however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city. The East Glorious Gate under renovation as part of the 19-year restoration process.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. Finally, in 1965, they again became public, at the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage for many years since the KMT still hoped to return to the mainland. Part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II, but the other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1947 under orders by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. ![]() In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City. The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, until he was evicted after a coup in 1924. Puyi sold many treasures to finance his expensive lifestyle, while others were stolen by palace eunuchs. In 1912, Puyi, the last Emperor of China, abdicated. ![]() In 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war. By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing 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. In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty. The floors of major halls were paved with “golden bricks”, specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou.įrom 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming Dynasty. 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. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.Ĭonstruction lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers. Upon the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered that the Mongol palaces be razed. The site of the Forbidden City was part of the Imperial city during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. ![]() So it got the name of Forbidden City or Purple Forbidden City. Purple was the symbolic color of the North Star, which was believed to be the center of the cosmos. In the feudal society, emperors had supreme power, so this residence was certainly a forbidden place. Why is it called the Forbidden City?įorbidden City also called Purple Forbidden City. Today, the Forbidden City is one of the China’s most famous tourist attractions. Forbidden City (故宫 or 紫禁城) where twenty-four emperors reigned over the country for over 500 years during the mid-Ming and the Qing dynasties, also named Palace Museum,The Forbidden City is the most magnificent and splendid palace complex in China and one of the five world-famous palaces with the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in England, the White House in the U.S.
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