Forbidden City
Beijing's Palace city or "Forbidden city" (so called because the majority of the populace was forbidden to enter) was completed in 1415. Its surrounding walls had a perimeter of 3.4 kilometres, a height of 10 metres, a thickness of 8.62 metres at the base, and a top thickness of 6.66 metres. The wall had two rows of roof tiles glazed in the imperial yellow colour set on a triangular base 0.84 metres tall. The interior and exterior sides of the walls were reinforced with 2-metre-thick bricks surrounding stones and rammed earth. The Forbidden city had four corner guard towers built in a combination multi-eaved Xieshanding style. There were four gates.
Wumen was the southern-facing main gate. It was in alignment with the city's central axis and with three other gates: Yongdingmen of the Outer city, Zhengyangmen of the Inner city, and Tiananmen of the Imperial city. It was built on a "凹" shaped platform 13.5 metres high. The gate tower was nine rooms by five rooms in the multi-eaved veranda floored design. It had two side pavilion towers on each side, square in shape, each five rooms by five rooms. The two wings stretching from the centre are commonly referred to as "hawk wings towers". Each of these wings is 13 rooms by two rooms with a square pavilion tower at the end of the wing. The wings each have a minor gate near the intersection with the main "body" of the platform. At the left and right of the platform are sundials and many other time measurement instruments. The gates are rectangular in shape, unlike the archways seen in the Outer city, Inner city, and Imperial city gates. There are three archways in the middle of the gate.
Xuánwumen (玄武门) (not to be confused with Xuanwumen (宣武门) of the Inner city gates), also called Shenwumen, was the northern entrance to the Forbidden city. Its gate tower was five rooms by three rooms in a multi-eaved veranda floored design. It has three rectangular gates. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a gate called Beishangmen just outside of this gate, but it was dismantled in 1950.
Donghuamen was the eastern entrance to the Forbidden city, with a design similar to that of Xuánwumen and Xihuamen. Xihuamen was the western entrance to the Forbidden city, with a similar design to Xuánwumen and Donghuamen.
The Qing Huidian records that there were six gates to the Forbidden city. This takes into account the two minor side gates of Wumen's two "arms".
Read more about this topic: Beijing City Fortifications
Famous quotes containing the words forbidden and/or city:
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