1.3 Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties—World's Largest Palace Complex明清故宫——世界最大的宫殿建筑

故宫位于北京市中心，也称“紫禁城”。紫禁城是中国五个多世纪以来的最高权力中心，是明清时代中国文明无价的历史见证。这里曾居住过24个皇帝，是明清两代（公元1368年至1911年）的皇宫，现辟为“故宫博物院”。故宫的整个建筑金碧辉煌、庄严绚丽，被誉为世界五大宫（北京故宫、法国凡尔赛宫、英国白金汉宫、美国白宫、俄罗斯克里姆林宫）之一，并被联合国科教文组织列为“世界文化遗产”。故宫的宫殿建筑是中国现存最大、最完整的古建筑群，总面积达72万多平方米，实有殿宇宫室8700多间，被称为“殿宇之海”，加之其以传统的皇家色彩——红黄为主，使其更为气魄宏伟，极为壮观。无论是平面布局、立体效果，还是形式上的雄伟堂皇，都堪称无与伦比的杰作。

The Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties have been well protected in the past century. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the two palace complexes were declared by the state as the Palace Museums in 1925 and 1926 respectively. In 1961, they were among the first group of the State Priority Protected Sites designated by the State Council, and were repaired and protected according to the conservation principles of cultural relics（文化遗产）. As a result, all the main buildings and majority of ancillary buildings（辅助建筑）have remained intact.

The Imperial Palaces bear exceptional testimony to Chinese civilization, being true reserves of landscapes, architecture, furnishings and objects of art, as well as containing exceptional evidence to the living traditions and the customs of shamanism practiced by the Manchu（满族）people for centuries. They illustrate the grandeur of the imperial institution from the Qing Dynasty to the earlier Ming and Yuan Dynasties, as well as Manchu traditions, and present evidence on the evolution of this architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Forbidden City is an extremely formal place: it is almost symmetrical（对称的）and hierarchically arranged so that all the important buildings run down the center, north-south. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, which comprise the outer palace where the Emperor exercised his supreme power over the nation, and the Hall of Heavenly Purity, the Hall of Union and the Hall of Earthly Tranquility, comprising the inner palace where the imperial family lived, stand in a line from south to north on the central axis. In keeping with geomancy（风水）, the main gate is in the south and the northern side is "protected" by the artificial Coal Hill. The buildings of the Forbidden City fully embody the artistic features and style of ancient Chinese palace architecture, and can be called a masterpiece in Chinese, even world, architectural history.

In 1406 the Ming Dynasty Emperor Zhu Di ordered the construction of an imperial palace: its construction began in 1407 and was completed in 1420. The stone needed was quarried（挖出）from Fangshan, a suburb of Beijing: for 20,000 peasants to be able to move an enormous stone cylinder in winter, engineers created a huge ice path by pouring liquid water on the frozen soil, and thousands of horses pulled the stone across the ice to the centre of Beijing. Wood was even more difficult to move. Giant trees in Sichuan Province were felled for the main halls, but it was found that they were too large to move. Workers had to wait until torrential rains（暴雨）washed the logs into rivers, where boatmen steered them into the Grand Canal, from where they were floated north to Beijing and towed into the palace grounds.

用英语畅谈Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties黄金句

☺ The Imperial Palaces bear exceptional testimony to Chinese civilization.故宫是中国文化的非凡见证。

☺ The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, comprise the outer palace where the Emperor exercised his supreme power over the nation.太和殿、中和殿以及保和殿组成了外朝，皇帝在此行使至高无上的权力。

☺ The buildings of the Forbidden City fully embody the artistic features and style of ancient Chinese palace architecture, and can be called a masterpiece in Chinese, even world, architectural history.紫禁城的建筑完整地展现了中国古代宫殿建筑的艺术特征及风格，堪称中国建筑史，乃至世界建筑史上的杰作。

☺ This remarkable architectural edifice offers important historical testimony to the history of the Qing Dynasty and to the cultural traditions of the Manchu and other tribes in the north of China.这座非凡的宫殿是清朝历史以及满族和中国北方其他部落文化传统的重要历史见证者。

用英语畅谈Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Palaces Inside the Imperial Palaces故宫里的宫殿