Restricted Realms: World’s Most Extraordinary and Off-Limits Places
In a world full of well-known travel destinations, some incredible sites stay secret and unreachable to most people. For those who are adventurous enough to…
The Forbidden City is, by turns, labyrinthine fortress, throne room, museum, and symbol. In the very center of Beijing, behind walls that stretch nearly eight meters high, stand the red lacquered palaces and golden roofs of this sprawling compound – the Ming and Qing emperors’ imperial seat from 1420 to 1912. No place in China carries so much history in its stones. As a World Heritage Site since 1987, “the Forbidden City in Beijing” has been lauded as “a priceless testimony to Chinese civilization” of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It spans some 720,000–1,000,000 square meters, comprises roughly 980 surviving buildings with about 9,000 rooms, and remains the largest, best-preserved palace complex in the world. Here emperors held court, conducted ceremonies, and regulated a realm of hundreds of millions; today millions of visitors – often in queues of tens of thousands a day – stream under its gates to witness firsthand the echoes of imperial life.
Yet even in its stone and timber the Forbidden City is alive: present in everyday Beijing, a reference point of modern urban life, and a stage for contemporary politics and culture. Mao Zedong’s portrait still hangs over Tiananmen Gate – the southern approach to the palace – a vivid reminder that this symbol of dynastic rule was adopted as a shrine of the People’s Republic. Business conferences and state banquets now occur in halls once used only by emperors. And the succession of restorations and exhibitions reflects both technical mastery and the Communist government’s interest in shaping China’s historical narrative. Walking through the courtyards of the Forbidden City today is to feel history and modern China converge – guided by the winds of Confucian cosmology and the rhythms of tourism alike.
No matter how you arrive – whether through Tiananmen Square from the south or along the central axis of Beijing – the first sight of the Forbidden City is overwhelming. A broad bridge spans a lotus-filled canal; in the distance rises the Meridian Gate (Wu Men), the triple-arched southern entrance with its five pavilions, crowded under an enormous portrait of Mao. Beyond it an immense courtyard opens onto the first of the great halls. Even experts pause at this portal. “It’s so big,” exclaim new visitors (who often add, “so crowded” and “it all looks the same”). The sheer scale of the place can be disorienting: one academic describes its outer enclosure as nearly 12 square kilometers, its inner “Imperial City” and core “Forbidden City” further walled off. Even when nearly all of the Palace Museum is open to the public today, large sections remain like quiet “walled palace compounds” on the flanks of the main axis, reserving some mystery.
On an ordinary weekday, the experience is both grand and peculiar. Tourists jostle under red wooden eaves carved with dragons. Schoolchildren trudge between golden statues. Here a whisper of history: a family in period costume has climbed carefully to the white-marble dais of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, children squealing. There a clan arranges themselves for a selfie on the Bridge of Five Dragons, pausing to admire the flowing Golden Water River below. Hushed security guards remind the restless: “No stepping on the threshold.” Throughout, the forbidden-turned-welcome city is punctuated by small marvels – a Tibetan memorial hall, a dragon’s head gutter, an immense bronze incense burner with dragons coiled around it.
But at first, it is the big picture that hits. From the tops of Jingshan Hill just north of the palace, the city spreads out in perfect symmetry: endless lines of golden roofs descending north–south along the central axis. The Hall of Supreme Harmony stands out in the foreground, the largest throne hall visible, its triple-eaved roof shining in the sun. Orange and vermilion palace complexes branch off to east and west; beyond, the tilled gardens and artificial lakes are so quiet one imagines the anglers of half a millennium past. The Palace Museum’s 72 hectares of courtyards and buildings look like a miniature city of Confucian ideals, embedded in today’s Beijing yet curiously apart from it. The historic side streets disappear at its walls; across the moat the modern streets throng with scooters and cars, up down shaded boulevards lined with government buildings. The Forbidden City is its own universe, but one very much inside Beijing’s orbit: at the north edge, steps lead into the green stillness of Jingshan Park (an old imperial viewing platform), and to the south the central axis plunges through Tiananmen and into the great square of the nation’s political ceremonies.
“Forbidden City” is a name heavy with history. The Chinese term Zĭjìnchéng (紫禁城) was first officially used in the 16th century; it literally means the “Purple Forbidden City.” Zi (紫, purple) refers to the North Star, the celestial throne of the Jade Emperor in Daoist cosmology. In folk ideas the earthly emperor was the “Son of Heaven,” the human counterpart to those stars – hence his palace was the Ziwei Enclosure’s terrestrial counterpart. Jin (禁) means prohibited, and cheng (城) is literally a walled city or “fortification.” For centuries commoners were not allowed beyond the outer gates; unauthorized entry meant execution. This aura is implied in the English term Forbidden City, though scholars note “Palace City” might capture the original sense better. Today Chinese people often call it Gùgōng (故宫), the “Old Palace.” The campus itself is officially the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City, a name that nods to both its imperial past and its museum present.
In official descriptions, the Forbidden City is emphatic about its scale and symbolism. It occupies roughly a rectangle of 960 by 750 meters – nearly one square kilometer. It is surrounded by a 7.9-meter-high wall and a 52-meter-wide moat; its gates align perfectly on the four cardinal directions. Over half a millennium the compound housed 24 emperors and countless courtiers, officials, artisans, and servants. To the world, it represents the supreme model of an imperial Chinese palace. To Beijing’s planners, it has always been the pivot of the city’s grid: the entire Central Axis of Beijing passes through the Meridian Gate, continuing through Tiananmen, to the north gardens of Jingshan and beyond to the Drum and Bell Towers. That straight, slightly slanted line was set in place even before the City was built, in Yuan-dynasty plan making, so that the new capital’s palaces would align with the earlier summer capital of Shangdu.
The Forbidden City was not born overnight. When Zhu Di – the Prince of Yan – seized the Ming throne from his nephew in 1402 (becoming the Yongle Emperor), he envisioned a new northern capital. In 1406, construction began with an imperial decree that literally spanned all of China. Lumber and stone were sourced from 14 provinces; precious woods such as Phoebe zhennan were floated down rivers or dragged on ice roads for thousands of kilometers. White marble from local quarries (even tunneled out of Beijing hills) and brightly glazed tiles from Nanjing and other kilns also arrived in great quantity. Over the decade that followed, an estimated one million laborers and 100,000 craftsmen worked under the hot sun to raise the palace. Many laborers were convicts or conscripts, yet their product would be unlike any earlier structure in China. By 1420 the compound was finished: a city of pavilions and halls that embodied the heart of imperial power.
Work was organized along ancient blueprint lines, guided by Confucian and Daoist principles of harmony. Architects used the Zhouli (“Rites of Zhou”) and Kao Gong Ji (Book of Diverse Crafts) as planning manuals. The layout is strictly symmetrical on a north–south axis, reflecting cosmic order. The color scheme is symbolic: yellow roof tiles and gilded ornament recall the sun and imperial authority, while the huge wooden columns and beams are painted deep vermillion red to convey good fortune. Even number symbolism pervades the design: nine and its multiples were reserved for the emperor. A popular myth claims there are 9,999 rooms in the palace, just shy of ten thousand – the number of rooms of heaven – but careful surveys find closer to 8,886 bays of rooms. Such details were deliberate: they signified that even the stones and rafters were coded to represent the emperor’s supremacy.
The Forbidden City’s layout reads like a city poem. An imperial visitor would pass through four gates before reaching the innermost sanctums. South of it lies Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) – the symbolic entrance to the Imperial City – where Mao’s face watches history unfold. Next comes the Meridian Gate (Wu Men), the great southern gate of the palace itself. One steps through five arches and is in the Outer Court.
The Outer Court extends northward roughly one-third of the length of the palace. Here the emperor would preside over the empire in full spectacle. Three monumental halls stand in line, each raised on high marble terraces:
Flanking the central trio are two more ceremonial halls at right angles: the Hall of Martial Valor (Wuying Dian), filled with bronze weaponry displays, and the Hall of Literary Brilliance (Wenhua Dian) for scholarly pursuits. The entire Outer Court’s effect is dramatic: broad marble ramps, green-glazed rooftops curling into the sky, all on colossal scale. It was meant to intimidate and impress the officials and envoys who came to kneel here.
A sunlit afternoon in the Forbidden City’s Outer Court. Worshippers and tourists alike gather beneath the towering Hall of Supreme Harmony (visible above), whose triple-marble-terraced platform supports the Ming and Qing emperors’ Dragon Throne.
Behind the last ceremony hall, a wide screen wall splits the complex into halves. Entering the Inner Court, one finds a more intimate arrangement: the private domain of the emperor, his family, and household. A stone-carved Walk of Peace leads to the Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing Gong), once the emperor’s bedroom, and the Hall of Union (Jiaotai Dian) where the Empress’s seals were kept. Adjacent stands the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (Kunming Gong), traditionally meant as the Empress’s quarters (later sometimes used by the emperor himself). Surrounding these central palaces are dozens of smaller courtyards and mansions where princes, princesses, consorts, and eunuchs lived. Tucked at the far north end is the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin Dian) – a more modest, two-story library and working office where Qing emperors in later years actually spent many waking hours governing from behind its latticed windows.
Throughout, the alignment and decoration were unchanging: rooms face south for warmth, the lacquered columns carry bracket sets that curve upward toward each roof eave, and dragon-thronged frescos and gilding adorn the beams. The floors of the grand halls are paved with special “golden bricks,” whose light reflectivity meant to be easily cleaned – even by ranking palace servants – and whose unusual composition is still studied by conservators today.
Everything in this layout embodies hierarchy. Yellow tile – reserved strictly for the emperor – covers every principal roof; secondary palaces might have green or black tiles. Even the arrangement of roof-ridge beasts signals status: nine figures (a heavenly being plus eight animals) ride the hall corners of the emperor’s mansions, but only smaller sets appear on lesser buildings. Gateways are painted a deep red and studded with rows of gold knobs – nine rows of nine studs on the front gates – signifying that only the emperor may pass. In older times the penalty for a commoner copying those studs was death.
Encircling the whole compound is a wall of packed earth and brick up to 8.6 meters wide at its base, with corner towers that mimic Song-dynasty pagodas (legend has it craftsmen copied famous towers from a painting). Outside that, the moat keeps modern Beijing’s bustle at bay. From above in Jingshan Park one sees the Forbidden City as a red-and-gold gem in a moat of green – a microcosm of imperial China.
Aerial view of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park (north of the complex). The whole palace compound sits on the central north–south axis of Beijing, with its gilded halls, courtyards, and gardens perfectly aligned as a supreme statement of cosmic order.
The scale inside these halls can be hard to grasp. Enter the Hall of Supreme Harmony: a breath of filtered incense, the combined scent of sandalwood and resin. The hall’s roof soars 30 meters above the floor on sixteen enormous wooden columns studded with gold leaf. We step on the burnished marble floor, laid so smoothly one expects the Dragon Throne to move like it’s on rollers. Above us, the gabled ceilings are painted with phoenix and dragon motifs in deep blues and yellows. At the far end sits the emperor’s carved wood throne, raised on dragon-clawed platforms. The hall would have been lit by hanging lanterns and sunlight through latticed windows, so bright that every painted dragon and mosaic tile dazzled. This is (as its name suggests) the most exalted space in the Forbidden City.
Still, even grand as it is, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is only one of many wonders. Around the palaces are richly furnished chambers where emperors ate, slept, prayed, consulted, or studied. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in the Temple of Heaven (outside the Forbidden City proper) is architecturally related, but inside this City itself are smaller temples to the Earth, to the Ancestors, to the Sun – each built to standard classical design but on imperial, gilded scale. Courtyards hold urns and steles commemorating past emperors. Niches hide gazebos and altars. One finds the Emperor’s private gardens to the north, with a North Sea (artificial lake) where lotus grow in summer and ice-skating was once done in winter.
To the modern visitor many of these details take on new life. A traveler might peer at ancient calligraphy on a screen, or trace a dragon carving with a finger (stealing no visit for risk of erasing history). Signs explain the rituals that once took place: how an emperor circled the Nine Dragons Altar to greet the New Year, or how concubines once pitched fan dances in the Palace of Eternal Spring. Each plaque and display is state-approved, yet honest in marking decay and repair. As one tour-guide quips, “Even the gods have to clean up their own temples.”
By the early 20th century the Forbidden City’s world was collapsing. The Qing dynasty fell in 1911, and the last emperor, the six-year-old Puyi, was permitted to stay in the Inner Court as a pensioner until 1924. With Puyi expelled, the throne was empty. In 1925 the Republic of China declared the Forbidden City a national museum (the Palace Museum) open to the public. Under curator Cai Yuanpei it began by exhibiting the treasures of the southern courtyards, then gradually expanded to the entire grounds.
The 1930s and ’40s were dangerous years. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), much of the precious imperial collection was whisked to Shanghai and then Hong Kong; thousands of pieces were eventually transported to Taiwan for safekeeping. These works form the core of today’s National Palace Museum in Taipei—a reminder that China’s heritage was once in flight from its heartland. Meanwhile, back in Beijing, the fragile palaces endured occupation and bombardment.
After the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, attitudes towards the Forbidden City were ambivalent. Some radicals viewed it as a symbol of feudal oppression. There was talk in the 1950s of demolition to make way for new party buildings, but Mao Zedong – perhaps rightly, given later relations with the West – decided to preserve it. During the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution it came under threat again; Red Guard factions vandalized some halls, smashed sculptures, and defaced tablets. Only after Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the army to guard the gates did the worst savaging stop. A Chinese film shows Zhou standing with troops, gleefully brandishing rifles to keep the Red Guards at bay; the Forbidden City’s survival owed much to these last-minute interventions.
Once the political storms passed, the compound shifted to the peaceful labor of preservation. Historic dining pavilions were rebuilt from charred foundations, roof tiles recovered from rubble, beams stripped and revarnished. In 1961 the Chinese government declared the Forbidden City a protected heritage site, and it was finally listed by UNESCO in 1987 as the “Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.” Over the late 20th century it became not just a museum but a stage for diplomacy and national display: Nixon dined in its halls in 1972, as did later presidents, including Trump in 2017 (in a restored Qing banquet hall). When visiting dignitaries now tour the palace, it’s as much a statement of China’s cultural inheritance as any Tiananmen ceremony.
Meanwhile, the Palace Museum itself expanded dramatically. In 2012 curator Shan Jixiang launched a massive opening-up: only 30% of the complex had been viewable in 2012, but by the 2020s about three-quarters was accessible, with more restoration on track. Galleries and conservation labs were built behind the scenes. In 2025 – the centennial of the museum’s founding – over 90% is expected to be renovated and open. Shan bluntly told state media: if visitors only walk the central axis from front to back “without looking at any exhibitions… it is not a museum that people can enjoy from the bottom of their hearts.” So new exhibitions present court paintings, costumes, imperial clocks, and ceramics with advanced displays and even digital guides. The Forbidden City of today is thoroughly a palace museum: a place where history is catalogued, explained, and at least partly democratized.
Maintaining the Forbidden City is a challenge that spans traditional craftsmanship and modern science. In every quarter – from the dry stone ramps to the lacquered doorway thresholds – ongoing conservation is needed. UNESCO reports note huge investments: by the early 2000s China was spending upward of 12–15 million RMB annually, up from 4 million in the 1980s, on upkeep. Massive projects have been launched: a 600-million-yuan effort dredged the moat and rebuilt sections of the palace walls and banks, rescuing over 110 ancient structures from decay. Laboratories now test paint pigments and analyze wood age; around 150 specialized restorers use microscopes and X-ray diffraction machines in onsite labs to treat artifacts from centuries ago.
The results are tangible. Entire halls have been stripped down to their frame and rebuilt roof by roof; golden eaves are rebound and repainted in the original kiln recipes. Antique clocks that once ticked for emperors are carefully lubricated to run again. A gilded bronze urn from the Summer Palace, cracked in transit, has been mended with exacting epoxy so that its lost dragon tail was reattached. Scrolls of silk paintings that were damaged by mildew are painstakingly “inpainted” – holes filled with silk threads dyed to match the original, a process that can take months for a single panel. On any given workday one can see artisans in workshops: a conservator in surgical gloves delicately dusting gilt on a casket, another reading a 15th-century poem under UV light to see hidden retouching.
This fusion of past and present has allowed the Forbidden City to remain not a static monument but a living laboratory of heritage science. Yet it also highlights tensions: modern gadgets hum within ancient walls, creating a subtle irony. A 19th-century servant’s uniform may dangle next to an iPad playing an explainer video. Even as it tests new fire alarms, water mains, and electric lighting, the palace strives to maintain its original ambiance. At night, discreet LED lamps outline the hallways so that visitors after hours feel they tread on the same stone as emperors, not flush steel grates. State documents emphasize that “the Forbidden City is the best-preserved palace complex not only in China but in the rest of the world,” and treat its preservation as a matter of national pride.
When the Qianlong Emperor’s private garden (Taihuai Xiyuan) was restored after centuries of neglect, historians and gardeners gathered to research the exact 18th-century garden plan. Every tile and shrub was chosen to match what Qing courtiers would have seen at the height of that emperor’s reign.
For all its size, the Forbidden City is experienced through small human stories. Many Chinese visit it dozens of times in their lives, and the palace has entered popular culture and personal memory. School children sometimes recite poetry in its courtyards. Photographers gather at Jingshan for the classic city panorama. On Tourist Day or other festivals the courts come alive: in May 2023, for example, crowds “dressed in exquisite traditional Chinese costumes” took wedding photos in front of the gates and corridors. These couples laugh beneath carved beams, exchanging vows with the ancient dynasties looking on. On Lunar New Year, thousands of visitors flood the city to pay homage to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (in the Temple of Heaven outside the walls), often walking through the palace on pilgrimage to Feng Shui lucky spots. On National Day in October, official tours parade foreign journalists through spotless halls, as though the centuries of history were a script for cultural diplomacy.
Everyday scenes abound. At sunrise you might find joggers doing tai chi by a quiet side gate. Vendors outside the moat sell mini-bricks of “golden syrup cake” shaped like palace lanterns. Tour guides point out the thick carpets of ancient now-slippery marble steps that emperors once crept up in ceremonies – reminders of how ordinary floors of the City are worn by the millions of footfalls now. In summer, tourists often buy hand-held fans or peel mandarin oranges in the shade of the main halls; in winter, some take the day off just to walk the length of the imperial park that was once their ancestor’s back garden.
Despite all this openness, not everything is on display. Parts of the Forbidden City remain off-limits – used as administration offices or simply unexcavated stores. For a while, Shan’s remark that only 30% was open hinted at the untapped secrets within. Now it is closer to 75–90%, but that still leaves hidden pockets: a back staircase some visitor maps don’t mention, a small hall where only palace functionaries tread. Nonetheless, the balance between transparency and aura is different from what it was even a generation ago. Crowding rules have been introduced: timed entry tickets, maximum visitor caps per day (to protect the sites). And in 2020–21, pandemic restrictions briefly emptied the courtyards, a stark preview of how serene the palace can be without “the great noisy engine of tourism,” as one curator put it. Local Beijing residents often describe their first visit with astonishment: “I couldn’t believe it was still there,” they say, having heard only stories of former glory. Even seasoned locals find new surprises on each trip.
Why does the Forbidden City matter in 2025? For China, it remains a powerful symbol. It anchors national identity in a tangible past. It is “a living bridge” between old and new, as one news site phrased it – a space where modern China situates its continuity with imperial heritage. Politically, the site is occasionally used for theatre: leaders are reported to gather there for important summit calls, knowing the gravitas the walls convey. Culturally, it is the core of Beijing’s identity – known affectionately simply as “Gugong” among Chinese, and treated as a custodian of everything from painting and poetry to superstition and court etiquette.
Globally, millions connect to Beijing through it. For many first-time foreign visitors, arriving at Tiananmen and passing into the Forbidden City is a climactic moment of their trip – a living history lesson. It appears endlessly in documentaries, films, and even video games as shorthand for “ancient China.” UNESCO’s praise – that the palace represents the highest achievement of Chinese wooden architecture – draws scholars and architects from abroad. The palace museum’s exhibitions travel to other countries, like when rare imperial robes went on tour in Europe, showing the world the craftsmanship of the Qing court.
But not everyone looks at the City with rosy eyes. Some Chinese youth see it as a reminder of hierarchy or old-guard thinking. To Tibetans, Mongolians, or Uyghurs, the Forbidden City is also a reminder of Han Chinese empire. In tourism circles there are debates: some argue it is “over-exposed,” others that it is the core of any historical tourism in China. Environmentalists worry about smog – the dreaded grey haze that sometimes settles on even the golden rooftops – and about the impact of 20 million annual visitors. There have been proposals to introduce ride-sharing within the palace or to rotate exclusive VIP tours. Each change raises questions: can modernization and preservation truly coexist here?
A few points, however, are widely agreed upon. First, the Forbidden City is a masterpiece of place-making. Its ability to conjure a lost era is astonishingly effective. Stepping beyond the Meridian Gate still feels, for many, like stepping into another time. Second, it is undeniably a center of learning: millions of schoolchildren have made pilgrimages here, reading imperial edicts and imagining the forbidden rituals. Last, it is a mirror of China’s own contradictions and strengths. Beneath its gilded roof, history is curated and sometimes contested; but the fact that it survives at all is remarkable given the turbulent 20th century. It is, in every way, China’s “best-preserved” palace complex – a treasure that the state vigorously protects and the people eagerly embrace.
The Forbidden City can surprise us even now. One might enter with a guidebook and leave with a poignant sense of time’s weight. It is here that emperors pretended to be sons of Heaven, yet two centuries of communist rule also folded into these wooden beams. It is here that emperors’ ancestral tablets still stand in bronze shrines, while Mao’s portrait presides just outside. Yet the thronging crowds seem to have made the Forbidden City their own, teetering on the line between reverence and selfie-posing.
What is it like to visit today? Imagine standing under that great hall roof as a drizzle begins. The tiles silently capture the raindrops. Tourists and locals walk by, pausing. The guide explains the age of the wood. At that moment one senses: this is not just the past on display, it is the continuing heartbeat of Beijing’s center. Such is the power of the Forbidden City: it is a mosaic of epochs, painted in stone, and unfailingly human in its scale.
From monumental granite terraces to the pattern of tiles on the ground, from the whisper of a bronze bell to the snap of a tourist’s camera shutter, the Forbidden City still speaks. It teaches, dazzles, and humbles – demanding respect for what was built and, ultimately, for what endures.
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