When was the Forbidden City built?

The Forbidden City in Beijing is based on the Forbidden City in Nanjing. Construction of the Forbidden City began in the fourth year of Yongle (1406) and was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420). It is a rectangular city with a length of 96 1 m from north to south and a width of 753 m from east to west. Surrounded by a wall with a height of 10 meter, there is a moat with a width of 52 meters outside the city.

The architecture of the Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court. The center of the outer court is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Zhonghe and the Hall of Baohe, which are collectively called the three halls, and are the places where the country holds ceremonies. The center of the Forbidden City is Gan Qing Palace, Jiaotai Palace and Kunning Palace, collectively referred to as the last three palaces, which are the main palaces where emperors and empresses live.

Extended data

The origin of the name of the Forbidden City

In ancient China, the planning concept of "harmony between man and nature" was emphasized, and the stars in the sky were used to correspond to the capital planning, so as to highlight the legitimacy of political power and the supremacy of imperial power. The Emperor of Heaven lives in Wei Zi Palace, and the emperor on earth claims that he is the "son of heaven" ordered by God. His residence should be a symbol of Wei Zi Palace, so as to conform to the Heaven Emperor. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that "there is a Wei Zi Palace in the sky, which is the residence of God".

The king built a palace and liked it. "Wei Zi, Ziyuan, Zigong and so on have become synonymous with the Forbidden City. Because the feudal palace was forbidden in ancient times, ordinary people could not enter it, so it was called "Purple Forbidden". In the early Ming Dynasty, it was called "Imperial City" together with the outer forbidden wall, but it was different from the outer forbidden wall in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, that is, Miyagi was called "Forbidden City" and the outer forbidden wall was called "Imperial City".

Baidu Encyclopedia-Beijing Forbidden City