Overview
Chinese Name: 故宫博物院
English Name: The Palace Museum; Gu Gong Bo Wu Yuan,Forbidden City
Location: Beijing
Type: Ancient culture and art
Rating Level: AAAAA (5A)
Website: https://en.dpm.org.cn/
Brief Introduction
The Palace Museum 故宫博物院 is a comprehensive museum of China, established on October 10, 1925 and located in the Forbidden City紫禁城. Its collections include but are not limited to the imperial palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and their collections.
The Palace Museum is the largest museum of ancient culture and art in China and one of the three largest palaces in the world.
The Forbidden City of Beijing is the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units, the first batch of National 5A Tourist Attractions, and was selected into The World Heritage List in 1987.
The Forbidden City was the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911). After seizing the throne, Zhu Di, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, decided to move the capital to Beijing. He began to build the palace in 1406 and completed it in 1420.
After the victory of the 1911 Revolution, the Qing government announced its abdication, and all the palace was nationalized. The new government successively sorted out all kinds of cultural relics. On October 10, 1925, a grand ceremony was held in the square in front of the Qianqing Gate乾清门, and a telegram was sent to the whole country to announce the official establishment of the Palace Museum.
Since then, the Forbidden City began to open to the outside world, and ordinary people finally had the opportunity to see the interior and treasures of the mysterious palace.
What worth to visit and see？
Architectures
The Palace Museum is located in the center of Beijing, covering an area of more than 723600 square meters, surrounded by a 10 meter high wall and a 52 meter wide moat.
There are gates on the four sides of the city wall, which named Meridian Gate午门, Shenwu Gate神武门, Donghua Gate东华门, Xihua Gate新华门
.
The total area of ancient buildings in the city is about 160000 square meters. The layout of the whole group of palaces is cautious and orderly. The layout and shape are designed and built in strict accordance with ancient theories, reflecting the supreme authority of the emperor.
The first half of the Forbidden City is centered on the three main halls of Taihe Hall太和殿, Zhonghe Hall中和殿 and Baohe Hall保和殿, supplemented by Wenhua Hall文华殿 and Wuying Hall武英殿 in the East and West. They are collectively referred to as the “Outer Dynasty外朝”. They are the places where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties handled government affairs, held court meetings and other important celebrations.
The second half is the Royal living area in the north of the Forbidden City. Here are the emperor’s and Queen’s dormitories, the Qianqing乾清宫 and Kunning坤宁宫 palaces, as well as the East and West sSix Palaces东西六宫 where the empresses live.
Art collections
The total number of cultural relics in the Palace Museum reached 1807558, including 1684490 precious cultural relics, 115491 general cultural relics and 7577 specimens, covering almost the whole history of the development of ancient Chinese civilization and almost all categories of cultural relics.
There are about 140000 paintings, murals, prints, calligraphy, letters and steles in the Palace Museum, accounting for about one quarter of the total amount of ancient Chinese calligraphy and painting in public museums in the world.
The Palace Museum has 350000 pieces of ceramic ware, ranking first in the world museums in total, including more than 1100 first-class products, about 56000 second-class products, and more than 36000 pieces of ceramic specimens collected from more than 200 kilns across the country. The collection covers a wide range and runs through the whole history of Chinese ceramics.
The Palace Museum has a collection of more than 15000 bronze wares of different dynasties. It is the museum with the largest collection of Chinese bronze wares in the world.
The Palace Museum has 28461 jade objects, covering the main historical periods of China. There are nearly 18000 lacquerware pieces, especially the works of the yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are also more than 600000 ancient books and ancient architecture collections, including about 400000 rare ancient books and more than 200000 Book editions.