The Forbidden City, located in the middle of Beijing, was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 rooms and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese imperial architecture and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and was listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1924, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties.