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Home > Travel China > China Attractions > Summer Palace
Summer Palace
China, an East Asian country is one of the world’s oldest civilizations. It has a vast cultural history of more than five thousand years and an outstanding natural beauty. On the other hand, this country has remained a comparatively isolated and secluded one, and being a land of mystery, this country is not known to the western half of the world. However, China is rapidly developing and has grown in the phase of modernization, with an immense speed and is also welcoming the outer world to interact and do business with them.
The construction of the Summer Palace was first started in 1750. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was in heyday and China was a powerful Asian country with huge territories. The monarch in power then was Emperor Qianlong. With extreme power and large sums of money, he summoned skillful and creative artisans from all over the country to carry out this construction work in honor of his mother's birthday. After 15 years and one seventh of the nation's annual revenue spent, the Garden of Clear Ripples was completed and served as a testimony to China's scientific and technological achievements.
In 1860, huge royal garden was burnt down along with the Yuanming Yuan by Anglo French allied forces. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi reconstructed the garden on the same and renamed it the Garden of Nurtured Harmony that is Summer Palace. The East Gate the main entrance to the Summer Palace. On top of the eaves of the door there is a bearing a Chinese inscription which means Garden of Nurtured Harmony, whose calligrapher was Emperor Guangxu. That gate was used exclusively by the emperor, the empress and the queen mother. All others were used the side doors.
The Summer Palace can be divided into two parts Longevity hill and Kunming lake. The entire garden covers an area of 290 hectares, of which three fourths consists of a lake and rivers. This majestic garden features 3,000 room-units and covers an area of 70,000 square meters, with more than 100 picturesque spots of interest. The layout of the Summer Palace includes three groups of architectures palaces where the emperor attended to state affairs, resting places of the emperor and empress, and sightseeing areas.
Characterized by its huge scope rich cultural embodiments, the Summer Palace has become one of the most well-known tourist sites in world.
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