Wang:

The Palace Museum is the largest and best-preserved imperial residence in China today. Construction of the "Forbidden City" began in 1406 and took 14 years. The first ruler who actually lived here was Ming Emperor Zhudi. For five centuries thereafter, it continued to be the residence of 23 successive emperors until 1911 when Qing Emperor Puyi was forced to abdicate the throne. In 1987, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recognized the Forbidden City as a world heritage site.

It is believed that another name for the Palace Museum, Zi Jin Cheng (Purple Forbidden City), was derived from astronomical folklore. Ancient Chinese astronomers divided the constellations into groups and centered them around the Ziwei Yuan (North Star). The constellation containing the North Star was called the Constellation of the Heavenly God and the North Star itself was called the purple palace. Because the emperor was supposedly the son of the heavenly gods, his central and dominant position would be illustrated by the use of the word purple in the name of his residence. In folklore, the term "an eastern purple cloud is drifting" became a metaphor for auspicious events after a purple cloud was seen drifting eastward immediately before the arrival of an ancient philosopher, LaoZi, near the Hanghu Pass. Here, purple is associated with auspicious developments. The word jin (forbidden) appears because the imperial palace was heavily guarded and off-limits to ordinary people.

The red and yellow colors used on the palace walls and roofs are also symbolic. Red represents happiness, good fortune and wealth. Yellow is the color of the earth on the Loess Plateau, the original home of the Chinese people. Yellow became an imperial color during the Tang dynasty, when only members of the royal family were allowed to wear it and use it in their architecture.

The Forbidden City is rectangular in shape. It is 960 meters long from north to south and 750 meters wide from east to west. It has 9,900 rooms under a total roof area of 150,000 square meters. A 52 meter wide moat encircles a 9.9 meter high wall which encloses the complex. Octagonshaped turrets rest on the four corners of the wall. There are several entrances into the city: the Meridian Gate to the south, the Shenwu Gate (Gate of Military Prowess) to the north, the Xihua Gate to the north, the Xihua Gate to the west(Western Flowery Gate), the Donghua to the east (Eastern Flowery Gate).

There are a huge number of buildings that make up the Palace Museum complex. Can you guess how many? According to calculations made in 1973, there are more than 90 courtyards, 980 buildings and 8,704 rooms inside. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the number of buildings varied, and so there were no fixed number of rooms. Traditionally, Chinese believe that there are 9,999.5 rooms in the Palace Museum, because there are 10,000 rooms in theaven. After all, the Chinese emperor can't have more rooms than the heavenly gods, for he is considered their son.