Yuanmingyuan Park

Beijing / ChinaAugust 01, 2026

The garden the emperors loved most

For a century and a half the Yuanmingyuan, the "Garden of Perfect Brightness", was the true heart of the Qing empire. Begun in 1709 under the Kangxi Emperor and vastly expanded by his grandson the Qianlong Emperor, it grew into a complex of three linked gardens, Yuanmingyuan, Changchunyuan and Qichunyuan, spread across some 350 hectares in the north-western suburbs of Beijing, five times the size of the Forbidden City. Later...