Forbidden City, Beijing, China

"Surrounded by moat and high walls, the fabled Forbidden City earned its name by being closed to everyone outside the Chinese royal family and their eunuchs and maidservants. The largest surviving palace complex in the world, it was completed in 1420 and remained the ruling seat of China from early Ming Dynasty until the end of dynasties in 1911, when the last Empress Dowager abdicated on behalf of her charge, the child Emperor Puyi, and China was declared a republic.

Thereafter, only the inner courtyards were reserved for the young Emperor and the continuation of his sequestered, privileged life, while the doors to the outer palace were thrown open to the public. Any peasant could now enter and gawk at the home of his former lords. But as a symbol of the imperial, feudal system, even this arrangement couldn't last and in 1924 the young Puyi was evicted; his childhood home became the Palace Museum, an epic domain of cavernous halls, gilded thrones, yawning courtyards, and half a millennium's worth of accumulated rich kitsch." (read more)

Walled city with moat	Main entrance (more)	Hall of Supreme Harmony (more)	Inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony
Rooftops near the ...			... Gate of Moral Standards
Hall of Central Harmony			Hall of Preserving Harmony (inside)
Gate of Heavenly Purity (1, 2)	Palace of Heavenly Purity (1, 2)	Hall of Union and Peace ...	... Inside
Gate of Heavenly Unity			Imperial Garden
Palace of Earthly Tranquility			Hall of Imperial Peace (1, 2)
Hall of Accumulated Elegance	Passage along the outer wall of the city	"Double Happiness"	Court Robe (more)
Rooftops (more)	Embroidered silk	Court robe (more)	Bridal palanquin
Diorama of dancing women	Gate of Distinguished Clan	Gate to Palace of Peace and Longevity (more)	Nine Dragon Wall detail
Palace of Peace and Longevity (1, 2)	Hall of the Norms of Government ...	... wall detail	Palace of Tranquil Longevity
Hall of Character Cultivation (exterior)	Hall of Joyful Longevity	Hall of Harmony	Well of Concubine Zhen