The building of the Forbidden City began in the fourth year of Yongle (1406), based on the Nanjing Forbidden City, and was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), becoming the palace of the twenty-four emperors in Ming and Qing Dynasties. On the 14th National Day of the Republic of China (1925 10/0/010), the Palace Museum was formally established and opened. The length of the Forbidden City in Beijing is 96 1 meter from north to south and 753 meters from east to west. Surrounded by a wall with a height of 10 meter, there is a moat with a width of 52 meters outside the city. There are four gates in the Forbidden City, the meridian gate in the south, the Shenwu gate in the north, the Donghua gate in the east and the Xihua gate in the west. There is a graceful turret at the four corners of the city wall, and there is a folk saying that there are nine beams, eighteen columns and seventy-two ridges to describe its complex structure.

The buildings in the Forbidden City are divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court. The center of the outer court is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Zhonghe and the Hall of Baohe, which are collectively called the three halls, and are the places where the country holds ceremonies. The left and right wings of the three main halls are supplemented by two groups of buildings: Wenhua Hall and Wuying Hall. The center of the Forbidden City is Gan Qing Palace, Jiaotai Palace and Kunning Palace, collectively referred to as the last three palaces, which are the main palaces where emperors and empresses live. Followed by the imperial garden. On both sides of the last three palaces, there are six palaces in the east and west, which are places where empresses live and rest. On the east side of the East Sixth Palace are Buddhist buildings such as the Heavenly Palace, and on the west side of the West Sixth Palace are Buddhist buildings such as the Zhongzheng Hall. In addition to the outer court and the inner court, there are two buildings: Waidong Road and Waixi Road.