The Forbidden City: the imperial palace at the heart of Beijing
History of Beijing's Forbidden City: its construction under the Ming, its nine thousand rooms, its cosmic symbolism, its emperors and its rebirth as a museum.
La rédaction Kotoba
Studio éditorial
Step through the Meridian Gate, and the noise of the city dies at once. Before you opens a dizzying succession of paved courtyards, marble terraces and roofs of a dazzling yellow, aligned with absolute precision on an axis that runs due north. For nearly five centuries, this place was forbidden to ordinary mortals: only the emperor, his family and his servants could tread its flagstones. Welcome to the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City (紫禁城, Zǐjìnchéng) is the largest preserved palace complex in the world, and the symbolic heart of imperial China. For nearly five hundred years, twenty-four emperors reigned there, sheltered behind its high purple walls. To understand the Forbidden City is to understand how imperial China conceived of power, the cosmos, and the emperor's place between Heaven and Earth.
At the origins: a palace for a Ming emperor#
The Forbidden City was built between 1406 and 1420, on the order of the emperor Yongle, third sovereign of the Ming dynasty. By transferring the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, Yongle wanted a palace to match his authority. The construction mobilized, according to traditional sources, close to a million workers, and brought precious woods from southwestern China as well as immense blocks of marble hauled over the ice in winter.
The result is a rectangle of seventy-two hectares, ringed by walls ten meters high and a wide moat. Inside, tradition speaks of nine thousand nine hundred rooms — the exact figure varies depending on what is counted, but the order of magnitude conveys the place's boundless ambition.
Here, architecture is not décor: it is discourse. Every wall, every roof, every step says where power lies and who may approach it.
A geometry of the cosmos#
The Forbidden City is wholly organized along a north-south axis, a reflection of the Chinese cosmic order. The emperor, "Son of Heaven," sat facing south, his back to the north, in the image of the polar star around which the constellations turn. The major buildings line up on this axis, from the outer courtyards reserved for ceremonies to the inner palaces where the imperial family lived.
The very name Zǐjìnchéng carries this symbolism. Everything obeys a strict hierarchy: the color of the roofs, the number of figurines on the ridges, the height of the terraces. The imperial yellow of the glazed tiles, a color reserved for the emperor, crowns the roofs, while the red of the walls evokes fortune and power.
literally means "the Purple Forbidden City." The zǐ (紫), "purple," refers to the polar star and its constellation, the celestial dwelling of the Jade Emperor; jìn (禁) means "forbidden"; chéng (城), "the city, the wall." The earthly palace is thus the mirror of the celestial palace.
Five centuries of emperors#
Twenty-four emperors succeeded one another in the Forbidden City: fourteen of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), then ten of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), of Manchu origin. Behind the walls lived a whole world: empresses, concubines, princes, and an army of servants, including the famous eunuchs, the only adult men allowed to remain in the inner quarters.
Life there was regulated like a ritual clock, between solemn audiences, ceremonies and court intrigues. Cut off from the people, the emperor governed an empire of hundreds of millions of inhabitants from this gilded enclosure, where the slightest gesture obeyed a thousand-year-old etiquette.
The throne hall, the , is the largest preserved wooden building in China. There the most solemn ceremonies were held — enthronements, imperial birthdays, the new year — before a court prostrate to the ground.
The end of a world: from Puyi to the Palace Museum#
The revolution of 1911 put an end to the Chinese Empire. The last emperor, Puyi, who ascended the throne at the age of two, abdicated in 1912 but was allowed to remain in the inner part of the palace. He was finally expelled in 1924. A year later, in 1925, the Forbidden City opened its doors to the public under a new name: the .
The forbidden place thus became common heritage. Despite the wars and upheavals of the 20th century — part of the collections was evacuated and then taken to Taiwan — the complex survived the century and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1987.
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The Forbidden City today#
Today, the Palace Museum is one of the most visited museums on the planet, welcoming millions of visitors each year — to the point of having to cap daily entries. One wanders among the immense courtyards, the throne halls and the inner gardens, in the footsteps of the vanished emperors.
Beyond tourism, the Forbidden City has become a powerful symbol of Chinese continuity, omnipresent in films, historical series and the national imagination. It also preserves colossal collections of imperial objects: paintings, porcelains, bronzes, clocks, refined witnesses of court life.
To discover the Forbidden City is to read five centuries of Chinese history in the open air. Behind its purple walls and golden roofs, it is not only a palace one visits, but a whole conception of the world — that of an empire that saw itself as the center of the Earth, under the gaze of Heaven.
FAQ#
What is the Forbidden City? The Forbidden City (紫禁城) is the imperial palace of Beijing, residence of the emperors of China from 1420 to 1912. It is the largest preserved palace complex in the world, now transformed into the Palace Museum.
Why is it called "forbidden"? Because access was forbidden to the people: only the emperor, his family and his servants could enter. The name also refers to the "purple" polar star, the celestial dwelling that the palace echoed.
When was the Forbidden City built? It was built between 1406 and 1420 under the emperor Yongle, of the Ming dynasty, when the capital was transferred from Nanjing to Beijing.
How many rooms does the Forbidden City have? Tradition speaks of about nine thousand rooms. The exact figure varies depending on what is counted, but it testifies to the exceptional scale of the palace.
Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.
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