Chengde Mountain Resort

Overview
 

The Chengde Mountain Resort (literally: Mountain Resort for Avoiding the Heat) or Ligong (the Qing Dynasty’s summer palace), which is located in the city of Chengde in Hebei Province, China, is the world’s largest existing imperial garden. In December 1994 the Mountain Resort was listed by UNESCO on its list of World Heritage Sites. 

It is a vast complex of palaces and administrative and ceremonial buildings, covering a total area of 5.6 km², almost half of Chengde’s urban area. Temples of various architectural styles and imperial gardens blend harmoniously into a landscape of lakes, pastureland and forests. The Mountain Resort took 89 years to complete, between 1703 and 1792. It consists of two parts: a court in front, where the emperor received high officials, nobles of various minority nationalities, and foreign envoys; and bed chambers in the rear, which were the imperial family’s living quarters. The Kangxi, Qianlong and Jiaqing Emperors often spent several months in a year here to escape the summer heat in the capital city of Beijing and the palace zone in the southern part of the resort was therefore designed to resemble the Forbidden City in Beijing.  

The Mountain Resort is most famous for the 72 scenic spots named by the Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors, many of which were copied from amous landscaped gardens in Southern China. For instance, "Tower of Mist and Rain," is a copy of a tower in Nanhu Lake at Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province. In the year 1751 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a 70m high stone Chinese pagoda was built, which is shaped with an octagonal base while the pagoda’s nine stories are decorated with colorful glazed tiles and the steeple is crowned with a gilded round spire.

Features
World’s largest existing imperial garden Listed by UNESCO on its list of World Heritage Sites A vast complex of palaces and administrative and ceremonial buildings