Chinese New Years in Beijing!- Part 3

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

This place is enormous and covers about 7,750,015 square feet! It has 9,999.5 rooms, as to not compete with the previously thought 10,000 rooms of Heaven. The moat surrounding the Forbidden City is almost 20 feet deep with standing protective walls of 33 feet in height. All of this was built in only 14 years as well! The project began in 1406 & if you can grasp it's size, this is an incredible feat. It was primarily used during the mid-Ming & Qing Dynasties. Remarkably, it remained the main politcal center until 1912.

Pathways to many other rooms.

The rock formations were left in a portion of this city.

The Forbidden City was completed in 1420, so it's continually being repaired.

One of the many concubine rooms.

A small portion of the Emperor's room.

After the crossing, another large gate.

Walking in the courtyard of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony was originally around 4,000 feet long. This photo was borrowed from Allen Timothy Chang located on this site.

This is the center slab of rock from the Hall of Supreme Harmony. This is the longest carving of it's kind in the Forbidden City.

Some of the buildings lying west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

These are the same building to the west, yet taken from the deck of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Hey there... Viewing north from the deck.

This is the Meridian Gate which is the largest gate of the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Gate (wikipedia.org spelling) is the main entrance to the Forbidden City & also lies on the northern end of Tiananmen Square.