Forbidden City

As China's largest and most significant ancient palace, the Forbidden City is the best preserved one. It now serves a function as China's Palace Museum. This magnificent palace, located in the center of Beijing city, was built in 1406 and completed in 1420. In the past, it was used as the imperial residence for 24 emperors from Ming and Qing dynasties. It is the palace most representative of Chinese civilization, considered a holy place by the Chinese people. 

The palace covers an area of over 2,350,000 square feet. It has 9,999 rooms built in traditional architectural style. Ten-foot-high walls surround the palace, reinforced by a massive moat and observation towers. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony are at the center of this awe-inspiring palatial complex. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is famous as a lama temple. These three halls divide the complex along a north-south and east-west axis. Just outside the palace complex is Tian'anmen Square , the largest city square in the world.

The Title of the Forbidden City is concerned with China's ancient philosophy and traditional astronomical theory. Chinese people follow the principle of the Heaven-Human Unity or Heaven-Human Interaction. Hence the Forbidden City is said to build via modeling the legendary Heaven Palace. In ancient astronomy, the fixed stars are categorized into three kinds (in Chinese "三垣"). They cycle around 28 Star Mansions（星宿）, and the Ziweiyuan(in Chinese "紫微垣" ), which, currently, is entitled Polaris, is located in the center of the heaven. It is the center of the star mansions. Zijincheng( Forbidden City, in Chinese "紫禁城") has the same meaning as it to show the Imperial Palace is the heart or center of humankind. Jin (禁) means this place is exclusively for Emperor. It is incomparably holy, so the commoners are forbidden to come in and stay in.

The number of rooms in Forbidden City is 9,999, and the number of bronzy doornails on each door is also 9 in both horizontal and vertical counting. This strange figure is also linked with ancient people's understanding to digit. The ancient people think "9" is the largest digit and Emperor on earth is also the largest. So they are in agreement for superiority. Besides, the same tone of "9" as Chinese Character "久" jointly means eternality or permanence, which further indicates the territory and rule of Emperor are everlasting . The idea of Confucianism is also deeply shown in the titles of buildings of the Forbidden City. For instance, the Chinese characters such as "仁"(benevolence) ,"和"(peace),"中"(centralization),"安"(stability) are all on behalf of the essence and core of Confucian ideas and highlighting the traditional ideology of Confucianism.