Palaces in China

The Forbidden City was built between 1406 and 1420 for the Yongle emperor and housed 24 Ming and Qing emperors until the last, Puyi, was expelled in 1924. It became the Palace Museum the next year. The route is one way, south to north: in through Tiananmen and the Meridian Gate, across the vast courtyard to the Gate of Supreme Harmony, then the three great halls of the outer court, led by the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where emperors were enthroned. Behind them, the inner court of residential palaces and the Imperial Garden is smaller in scale and more intimate.

Tickets cost about 60 yuan (around $8) from April to October and 40 yuan from November to March, sold online only with your passport number, and they open about a week ahead. In summer and on holidays they sell out within hours. Small extra tickets for the Treasure Gallery and the Clock Gallery, in the east side of the complex, are worth buying; the side courts are also much quieter than the central axis. The palace is closed on Mondays except on public holidays. Allow at least three hours, half a day if you want the galleries.

When you leave through the northern Gate of Divine Prowess, cross the road to Jingshan Park and climb the hill for the classic view back over the golden roofs, best in late afternoon. For the galleries inside, see our museums guide.

The Summer Palace, in Beijing’s north-west, is a lake and a hill turned into a garden: Kunming Lake covers about three quarters of the grounds, with Longevity Hill and the Tower of Buddhist Incense rising on its north shore. The Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt it in the 1880s, famously with money diverted from the navy, and the Marble Boat at the western end of the shore is the joke at her expense. Between them, the Long Corridor runs for about 730 m along the water, its beams painted with thousands of scenes. The Seventeen-Arch Bridge links the shore to an island at the south-east of the lake.

Metro line 4 stops at Beigongmen, by the north gate; walk over the hill and down to the lake, then out by the east gate. A basic ticket is about 30 yuan in summer, with a through ticket of about 60 yuan covering the inner halls and Tower of Buddhist Incense. Allow three to four hours, and take a boat across the lake in summer. In winter the lake freezes and parts of it open for skating.

A stop earlier on line 4, the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) was the larger and finer imperial garden until British and French troops looted and burned it in 1860. What survives are the shattered marble arches and fountains of the European-style palaces designed by Jesuit missionaries for the Qianlong emperor, set in a park of lakes and lotus ponds.

West of the Forbidden City lies a chain of lakes the emperors kept as private gardens. The southern two lakes are Zhongnanhai, the compound of China’s leadership, which you can only see from outside its red walls on Chang’an Avenue. The northern lake is Beihai Park, open to everyone for a small fee, with the White Dagoba on its island, a Nine-Dragon Screen of glazed tiles and rowing boats in summer. North again are the Houhai and Qianhai lakes, ringed with bars and hutong lanes.

Here, Prince Gong’s Mansion is the finest of Beijing’s princely residences: a series of courtyards and a rockery garden built for Heshen, the Qianlong emperor’s corrupt favourite, and later given to Prince Gong, a Qing statesman. It is popular with domestic tour groups, so book online and arrive at opening. In the same area you can walk the hutongs by rickshaw or bike, which our itineraries fit into a Beijing day.

Other imperial sites in the city are temples and altars rather than palaces, led by the Temple of Heaven; see our temples guide and historic sites guide.

Before they conquered Beijing in 1644, the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty built their palace in Shenyang, in the north-east. The Mukden Palace was begun in 1625 under Nurhaci and finished under his son Hong Taiji, and it is a fraction of the Forbidden City’s size, which makes it easier to take in. It is also different in style: the octagonal Dazheng Hall faces two rows of pavilions for the Banner chieftains, a layout that recalls a Manchu military camp more than a Chinese court. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site together with the Forbidden City.

High-speed trains from Beijing take two and a half to three hours, and the palace is in the old city centre, near the Shenyang metro. Allow two hours. Combine it with Nurhaci’s Fuling Tomb in a forest park east of the city, and the residence of the warlord Zhang Xueliang a short walk from the palace.

From the early 18th century, the Qing emperors spent their summers in the hills north-east of Beijing at Chengde, hunting, receiving Mongol and Tibetan envoys and governing from the Mountain Resort (Bishu Shanzhuang). It was built between 1703 and 1792 under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors and is the largest surviving imperial garden in China, enclosed by a wall of about 10 km. The palace halls by the main gate are plain grey wood, a deliberate contrast to Beijing; behind them stretch lakes, pavilions copied from southern China, and a large wooded park of hills and grassland.

Around the resort, the Eight Outer Temples were built to impress the empire’s Buddhist peoples. The Putuo Zongcheng Temple is a scaled-down copy of the Potala Palace, and the Puning Temple holds a giant wooden statue of the thousand-armed Guanyin, more than 20 m high. High-speed trains from Beijing take about an hour. Plan a full day, or stay a night to see the temples the next morning, since the resort alone fills most of a day.

The Potala Palace in Lhasa was the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas and the seat of Tibet’s government. The Fifth Dalai Lama began the current building in 1645: the White Palace, which held the living quarters and offices, and the Red Palace at the centre, with chapels and the gold-covered funeral stupas of past Dalai Lamas. More than a thousand rooms rise in tiers up the Marpo Ri hill.

Visits are tightly managed. You enter on a timed slot, which your tour agency books, usually the day before, and once inside you have about an hour to climb through the chapels on a fixed route. Tickets cost about 200 yuan in the high season and less in winter. The climb up the front steps is steep at this altitude, so leave the Potala for your third or fourth day in Lhasa, after you have acclimatised. At night, Potala Square in front is lit up and full of pilgrims walking the kora circuit round the hill.

The Norbulingka, a 20-minute ride west, was the Dalai Lamas’ summer palace, a park of willow trees and small palaces begun in the 1750s, including the residence built for the 14th Dalai Lama in the 1950s. In August, the Shoton festival fills it with Tibetan opera and picnics. Foreigners need a Tibet Travel Permit and a licensed guide; the rules are in our visa guide. Outside Lhasa, the dzong fortress above Gyantse is the most striking of Tibet’s old hilltop fortresses.

Xi’an was the capital of the Han and Tang, but its palaces were built of timber and rammed earth, and little stands today. The Daming Palace, the main Tang palace from the 7th century, covered several times the area of the Forbidden City; its site north of the railway station is now a heritage park with the reconstructed Danfeng Gate, raised foundations of the great halls and a museum. The Epang Palace site west of the city belongs to the First Emperor’s Qin dynasty and is mostly earthworks. Huaqing Palace, the Tang hot-spring palace at the foot of Mount Li, lies on the road to the Terracotta Army and is easy to add to that day. East of the city, the walled fortress of Tong Pass guarded the route into the Wei valley.

In Nanjing, the Presidential Palace tells the story of modern China in one compound: a Qing viceroy’s office, then the palace of the Taiping rebels’ Heavenly King, then Sun Yat-sen’s office as provisional president in 1912 and the seat of the Nationalist government. It is on metro lines 2 and 3 at Daxinggong. The other palace of the last dynasty’s end is in Changchun: the Imperial Palace of Manchukuo, where Puyi lived as the Japanese puppet ruler from 1932 to 1945.

Book the Forbidden City and the Potala first, as soon as your dates are fixed: they are the two palaces with hard daily caps. The Forbidden City sells only through its official website and WeChat mini-program, with your passport number; the Summer Palace, Prince Gong’s Mansion and most others also sell online but rarely sell out outside holidays. Pay with Alipay or WeChat Pay, both of which take foreign cards, and carry the passport you booked with.

Avoid the national holiday weeks, above all the May Day holiday and Golden Week in early October, when the Beijing palaces are at capacity. Weekday mornings are the quietest. Audio guides in English are available at the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Mukden, and official guides can be hired at the entrance; a guide is the best way to make sense of the Potala, and your Tibet tour includes one. Beijing’s palaces are linked by metro, while Shenyang and Chengde are high-speed train trips; see our getting around guide. For seasons, see the best time to visit: spring and autumn are best, and the Summer Palace is at its finest in late April and in October.

Expect security checks with bag scans and passport checks at the Forbidden City, which is entered from the south through the Tiananmen area. Large bags are not allowed, and there is no left-luggage, so leave them at the hotel. Drones are banned, and so is touching the painted woodwork or sitting on the stone balustrades.

The Potala is a working religious building. Walk clockwise, do not wear hats in the chapels, and do not photograph inside: photos are banned in the interior and staff enforce it. Small notes are given as offerings at the altars, but they are not expected from visitors. Dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered, and keep your voice down. At Chengde’s temples, the same courtesies apply as at any temple; our temples guide covers them.