Summer Palace 颐和园

About Summer Palace

Along the hill’s southern foot, the painted Long Corridor links views across the water with ceremonial and residential buildings. The hill rises behind it toward the Tower of Buddhist Incense, while the Seventeen-Arch Bridge connects the eastern shore with Nanhu Island. Choose a hill-and-corridor visit or a broader lakeside circuit at the outset; the palace’s scale makes these distinct routes, even though they share the same landscape.

The site's history traces to 1153, when the Jin dynasty ruler Wanyan Liang built a temporary palace near Fragrant Hills and Jade Spring Hill. In the Ming dynasty a temple was built in front of Weng Hill (瓮山) in 1494; the area around it later became an imperial garden known as Haoshan Garden (好山园), and the lake beside it was renamed 'Golden Sea' (金海).

Qingyi Garden (清漪园), the direct predecessor of the Summer Palace, was begun in 1750, when the Qianlong Emperor ordered the lake dredged and renamed Kunming Lake, piling the excavated earth onto Weng Hill, which he renamed Longevity Hill (万寿山); the garden was completed in 1764 at a cost of more than 4.8 million taels of silver. Three islets in the lake — Nanhu Island (南湖岛), Tuancheng Island (团城岛) and Zaojiantang Island (藻鉴堂岛) — represented the mythical 'Three Immortal Mountains' of Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou. The garden was burned down by Anglo-French forces in 1860.

The Summer Palace was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 1998. It contains more than 3,000 buildings, housing a collection of over 40,000 relics from various dynasties. Its main building was the Temple of Gratitude and Longevity (大报恩延寿寺), and the adjoining Long Corridor runs more than 700 meters.

What to look for

• Long Corridor: look up at the painted beams and compare the lake views framed between its columns.
• Longevity Hill and Tower of Buddhist Incense: read the ascending sequence of buildings above the north shore.
• Seventeen-Arch Bridge: examine the long stone crossing and its relationship to Nanhu Island.

Location & getting there

Getting to Summer Palace

The Eastern Palace Gate is the approach associated with the court and residential halls on the eastern side of the main complex.

• Choose your entrance in relation to the hill, Long Corridor, or bridge route; Kunming Lake occupies much of the site, so a nearby map pin may be on the wrong shore.