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The Forbidden City which is the world’s largest palace complex, is neither occupied as a residence nor is it one continuous building. Splendid Features of the Palace The total square footage of the complex is just less than 7,750,000 square feet, but with the vast open courtyards of the complex, the totaled square footage of the Forbidden City’s collective buildings is smaller than that of Istana Nurul Iman For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government The complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture 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 The construction of the palace lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers The Forbidden City is the world’s largest surviving palace complex and covers 72 hectares The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9-meter high city wall and a six-meter deep, 52-meter wide moat. The walls are 8.62 meters wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 meters at the top.

At the four corners of the wall sit towers with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges The Hall of Supreme Harmony which was the ceremonial center of imperial power, is the largest, and rises some 30 meters above the level of the surrounding square. It is the largest surviving wooden structure in China. The northern ramp, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.57 meters long, 3.07 meters wide, and 1.7 meters thick. It weighs some 200 tons and is the largest such carving in China. The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. The Forbidden City contains Equestrian painting of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735-1796) by Giuseppe Castiglione.

The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. Some 1.17 million items were stored in the Forbidden City. The imperial libraries housed one of the China’s largest collections of ancient books and various documents The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 items of paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This is the largest such collection in China. The Palace Museum’s bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty (founded c. 1766 BC). Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC) The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreign-made pieces.

The Museum’s collection of jade includes some 30,000 pieces