The Forbidden City.. an amazing gift to China from the Ming dynasty

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace during the mid-Ming and the Qing Dynasties. The Forbidden City is located in the middle of Beijing, China. It is now known as the Palace Museum. Its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters (appx 124 acres). The Forbidden City has 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms.

The Forbidden City is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties."

The Palace Museum in the Forbidden City should not be confused with the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan island. Both museums derive from the same institution, but they were split after the Chinese Civil War.