Forbidden City to Open More Areas to Visitors

Seventy-six percent of the Forbidden City is expected to be open to the public in 2020 after the completion of on-going restoration work, said Shan Jixiang, head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, at a seminar on December 8, 2013.

The seminar, held in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province, was aimed at discussing sustainable development of cultural heritage.

In 2020, the Forbidden City will be 600 years old. The restoration project that began in 2002 added three hectares of visiting area, about four percent of the total, to the Forbidden City by 2010.

"During the past 11 years, we moved seven out of the 13 units under the State Bureau of Cultural Relics in order to expand more places for visiting and to allow more visitors to learn about the palace's history," Shan said.

Shan also disclosed that the western areas of the palace, where the imperial women lived, will also be open to visitors for the first time. "The western areas have never been open and there are lots of flower gardens and Buddhist prayer rooms there," he said.

Forty-six percent of the palace's total area is now open to the public. However, visitors to the ancient structure have increased by 66 percent from 2002's 7.1 million to 2009's 11.9 million.

"The current areas that are open in the Forbidden City can accommodate 30,000 visitors each day, but in busy seasons, the number can hit 130,000," Shan said. "The expansion of the tourist area could greatly reduce this pressure and reduce the possibility of relics and sites being damaged."

There are more than 9,000 rooms in the Forbidden City, with tourists mainly allowed to enter those located along the central axes of the area. Many of the courtyards on both sides of the axes are not yet open to visitors. Opening these areas is the central purpose of the restoration project.

Before the restoration, nine percent of all buildings in the Forbidden City were occupied by outside institutions.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by the United Nations Educational，Scientific，and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.

Source: Women of China | Photo: Wikepedia

from China Travel & Tourism News http://www.chinatraveltourismnews.com/

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