文档介绍：Forbidden City
Part one: brief information and the meridian gate
Today, I am going to talk about a place of great interest not only in China, but also in the world, that is the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City is located in the center of Beijing, built on the central axis of the city. It used to be the imperial palace for the Ming and Qing emperors. The 1st Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang established Ming dynasty in 1368 and made Nanjing as the capital, but the 3rd Ming emperor Zhu Di decided to move the capital from Nanjing to Beijing. In 1406, large-scale construction of the Forbidden City started and it took 14 years to finish. The following year that is in 1421 the emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and since then altogether 24 emperors lived in the Forbidden City, 14 of them were Ming emperors and the other 10 were Qing emperors. The Qing dynasty was over thrown in 1911 by the Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. But according to the preferential treatment for the Qing court, the last emperor Pu Yi was allowed to live in the Forbidden City for another 13Years. In 1914, the outer court of the Forbidden City was opened to the public and in 1924 the emperor Pu Yi was driven out of the Forbidden City and the next year the plex of the Forbidden City was opened to the public as the Palace Museum.
The Forbidden City was the imperial palace for the emperor and served as both living quarters and the venue of the state administration. In the old days, the emperor had the supreme power and his residence was certainly a forbidden place to mon people, hence the Name “Forbidden City”.
The Forbidden City is also known as Purple Forbidden City. Because the ancient Chinese astronomers believed that purple was the symbolic color for the North Star which was believed to be in the center of the universe, and the palace on the North Star was called “purple palace” for the God of Heaven, to live in. and the emperor believed that he was the son of the God of Heaven, a