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Construction of Forbidden City

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Details of the Construction of Forbidden City

Large-scale construction of the Forbidden City started in 1406 during the Ming Dynasty. It is said that 100,000 artisans and one million civilians took part in the project. The building materials were from all parts of the country. For example, the timber was from Sichuan and Yunnan province in southwest China. The bricks used for laying floors were made in Suzhou. That is a city in the lower Yangtze River Valley. Stone needed was quarried from Fangshan, a suburb of Beijing. It was said a well was dug every fifty meters along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city.

The construction of the Forbidden City took 14 years and was completed in 1420. In the next year, the capital of the Ming dynasty was moved here from Nanjing. Starting from the third Ming Emperor Zhu Di, 24 emperors resided in the Forbidden City over 490 years. Fourteen of them were Ming emperors and the other ten were Qing emperors.


Beijing Tour Routes Includes Forbidden City:

Photo of Forbidden City