China's largest and best-preserved existing gardens

Summer Palace

The Summer Palace covers an area of 293 hectares. The structure of the Summer Palace is mainly based on the Wanshoushan Mountain, Kunming Lake and various garden buildings. There are more than 3,000 palace and garden buildings of various forms, which can be roughly divided into three parts: administration, life and excursion. The administrative area centered on the Hall of Renshou is where the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu sat in court to listen to politics and meet with foreign guests. Behind the Hall of Benevolence are three large courtyards: the Hall of Leshou, the Hall of Yulan, and the Hall of Yiyun, where Cixi, Guangxu, and the consorts lived. The Deheyuan Theater Building on the east side of the Yiyun Hall is one of the three major theater buildings of the Qing Dynasty. From the Sea of Wisdom at the top of Wanshou Mountain, the Summer Palace forms a hierarchical central axis from the Pavilion of Buddha's Fragrance, the Hall of Virtue and Glory, the Hall of Paiyun, the Gate of Paiyun, and the Place of Yunhui Yuyu. Below the mountain is a 700-meter-long "promenade", the promenade square beams with more than 8,000 colorful paintings, known as "the world's first corridor". Before the corridor is Kunming Lake. The west embankment of Kunming Lake is modeled after the Su Causeway of West Lake. Wanshoushan Mountain, the back of the lake, ancient forests, there are Tibetan temples, Suzhou Creek, the ancient trading street. At the east end of the lake, there is the Harmonious Garden, which was modeled after the Wuxi Yichangyuan, small and exquisite, known as the "garden of gardens".

Manshou Mountain belongs to the remaining veins of Yanshan Mountain and is 58.59 meters high. The complex is built according to the mountain, the front mountain of Wanshoushan Mountain, with the eight-sided, three-story, four-floor eaves of the Buddha Heung Pavilion as the center, forming a huge main building complex. From the "Yunhui Yu" pagoda at the foot of the mountain, through the Paiyun Gate, the Second Palace Gate, the Paiyun Hall, the Dehui Hall, the Buddha's Fragrance Pavilion, up to the Sea of Wisdom at the top of the mountain, forming a central axis rising up through the layers. On the east side, there are the stone tablets of "Wheel of Fortune" and "Kunming Lake of Manjusan". On the west side, there are the Wufang Pavilion and the bronze-cast Bao Yun Pavilion. There are Tibetan Buddhist buildings and colorful glazed multi-pagodas on the back of the hill. On the mountain, there are Jingfu Pavilion, heavy Cui Pavilion, write the autumn Xuan, paintings and other buildings and pavilions. In the middle of the center part of a group of large volume and rich image of the central building complex. This group of large buildings includes the main buildings in the garden - the "Paiyun Hall" where the Emperor and the Empress held their ceremonies and the "Buddhist Temple" and the "Buddhist Fragrance Pavilion". With the vertical axis of the central complex is echoed across the foot of the mountain, along the north shore of the lake east-west winding "promenade".

The early years of the Qing Dynasty Qianlong, Beijing's western suburbs of Haidian area of the garden increased, a large number of garden water makes the amount of water consumption is increasing day by day, when the garden water in addition to the flow of smaller Wanquan River system, more from the source of Yuquan Mountain, flowing into the West Lake of the water, which is also the source of water since the Ming Dynasty Tonghui River. Qianlong fifteen years (1750), in order to prepare for the Empress Dowager Chongde (Empress Xiaosheng Xian) of the 60th birthday, the Qianlong Emperor to govern the western Beijing water system as an excuse to order to expand the excavation of the West Lake, intercepting the West Mountain, Yuquan Mountain, Shou'an Mountain to the water, and in the West Lake west of the excavation of the Lake GaoShui Lake and YangShuLu, the three lakes as a reservoir to ensure that the palace garden water, and for the surrounding farmland to provide water for irrigation. Qianlong Emperor to Han Wu Di dug Kunming Pond drill military allusion to the West Lake will be renamed Kunming Lake, will dig the lake earth mounded in the north of the urn mountain, and will be renamed the urn mountain Wanshoushan.