The Summer Palace is China’s most extensive imperial garden, laid out around the artificial Kunming Lake and the modest rise of Longevity Hill. Sacked twice by foreign armies and rebuilt twice, most memorably by Empress Dowager Cixi, it still holds the 728-metre Long Corridor, the longest painted gallery in the world.
At a glance
The name Yiheyuan translates as the Garden of Nurtured Harmony. The garden follows the classical Chinese design principle of three hills and five lakes, a Taoist arrangement meant to render the universe in miniature. Empress Dowager Cixi is the figure most closely tied to the palace as it survives today: she made it her principal residence in later life and commissioned its rebuilding after the destruction of 1860.
Key facts
- Area: approximately 294 hectares, three-quarters of which is Kunming Lake, itself around 220 hectares.
- Origins: the lake was enlarged from a natural lake by the Qianlong Emperor in 1749 to mark his mother’s sixtieth birthday.
- Long Corridor: a 728-metre covered gallery running along the north shore of Kunming Lake, decorated with around 14,000 painted scenes from history, myth and landscape.
- Marble Boat: a two-storey marble pavilion built in 1755, later restored by Empress Cixi.
- Longevity Hill: rises 58 metres and carries the Tower of Buddhist Incense and the Sea of Wisdom Temple.
- Hall of Benevolent Longevity: the hall from which Cixi received her court.
History
The site has served as a royal garden since the Jin Dynasty, from 1153. In 1749 the Qianlong Emperor transformed it into a grand imperial garden in honour of his mother’s sixtieth birthday, naming it Qingyi Yuan, the Garden of Clear Ripples.
In October 1860, during the Second Opium War, British and French forces looted and burned the palace, destroying most of its buildings. The burning is said to have been ordered by Lord Elgin as a reprisal.
Empress Cixi rebuilt the palace between 1888 and 1895, using silver from the Board of Revenue, including funds that had been earmarked for the modernisation of the Chinese navy; some historians link this diversion to China’s defeat by Japan in 1894-1895. She renamed it Yiheyuan. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, the Eight-Nation Alliance sacked the palace again and Cixi fled to Xi’an; a second restoration was completed in 1902. The Summer Palace was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998.
What you see
Suzhou Street is a 300-metre replica of a traditional Suzhou market street, built along a canal on the north shore of Longevity Hill so the imperial court could experience southern commercial life without leaving Beijing.
The 17-Arch Bridge, 150 metres long and lined with 544 stone lions, links the east shore of Kunming Lake to Nanhu Island; it was inspired by a similar bridge at the neighbouring Old Summer Palace, also destroyed in 1860.
On the lake’s western shore stands the Marble Boat. On Longevity Hill, the Tower of Buddhist Incense sits on a 21-metre stone base and was used by emperors for Buddhist ceremonies; above it, the Sea of Wisdom Temple is covered in small glazed niches, each holding a seated Buddha, many of whose faces were deliberately smashed by British and French troops in 1860.
Practical information
- Getting there: the palace is reached by metro Line 4 to Beigongmen station, at the North Palace Gate, or Line 16 to Donggongmen station, at the East Palace Gate.
- On the water: rowing boats and an electric dragon-boat can be hired from the East Palace Gate jetty for a circuit of Kunming Lake to the Marble Boat.
- Tickets and hours: current opening times and admission arrangements are best confirmed through the Summer Palace’s own visitor channels before travelling.
Getting there
The Summer Palace lies in Haidian District, in the north-west of Beijing. It is served by metro Line 4, alighting at Beigongmen for the North Palace Gate, or Line 16, alighting at Donggongmen for the East Palace Gate.
Nearby
- Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) — about 2 km southeast; the earlier and far larger imperial garden complex begun by Qianlong from 1707, burned and looted by British and French forces in 1860; its ruined Baroque fountains, built with the involvement of the Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione, now form an archaeological park.
- Fragrant Hills Park (Xiangshan) — about 6 km west; a hill park rising to 557 metres, home to the fourteenth-century Biyun Temple and the Zhongshan Memorial Hall, where Sun Yat-sen’s coffin lay before burial in Nanjing; known for autumn colour and views over Beijing.
- Peking University and Tsinghua University — 1 to 3 km east; both campuses occupy former imperial garden land, Peking University from 1898 around Weiming Lake and Tsinghua from 1911, and both preserve sections of Qing-era garden.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Summer Palace
- Wikipedia, Long Corridor
- Wikipedia, Empress Dowager Cixi
- Wikipedia, Battle of Peking (1860)
- UNESCO, Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing, WHS reference 880
- Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, Norton, 1990
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