Forbidden City by Holly Ralston
The Forbidden City (also called the Palace Museum) was the Chinese Emperor’s imperial palace. It is located in the centre of Beijing in China. It had been the home to 24 emperors. The Forbidden City is one of the largest and best preserved palace complexes in the world. There are over a million rare and valuable objects in the Museum. It was built in 1406 to 1420 and consists of 980 buildings and 8,886 rooms. It covers 74 hectares and is surrounded by a 52 metre wide moat and a 10 metre high wall. 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 way the ancient Chinese people displayed their magnificent skills in the design and architecture is one of the reasons it is so important. It contains beautiful courtyards, terraces and stairways. The shape of the wall makes it almost impossible to climb. The cement is made from glutinous rice and egg whites. These materials make the wall incredibly strong. Many of the buildings in the Palace have been repaired and rebuilt, but their basic form and layout remain in their original state. The buildings represent the largest and best preserved examples of Chinese traditional architecture found today. The Forbidden City is also important economically; more than eight million people visit the Palace each year.
The Forbidden City contains some of China’s most amazing historical art. The Palace Museum holds a total of 1,807,558 artefacts. The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. Today, there are over a million rare and valuable works of art in the collection of the Palace Museum including paintings, ceramics, seals, steles, sculptures, bronze ware and enamel objects. The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramic and porcelain, close to 50,000 paintings and 10,000 pieces of bronze. The