Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is the largest surviving palace complex in the world, covering an area of 72 hectares. Its plan is rectangular, measuring 961 meters from north to south and 753 meters from east to west. It contains 8,707 rooms in its 980 buildings. The builders of the Forbidden City intended it to be the center of ancient, walled Beijing, the center of the empire, and the center of the world. (The name China means "The Middle Kingdom" in their own language.) The palace system was surrounded by the imperial city, the latter by the inner city, and the outer city lay to the south of it.