CChronica Maps

Forbidden City: Then and Now

Imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, completed in 1420 under the Yongle Emperor; twenty-four emperors lived here until 1912. Since 1925 it has been the Palace Museum.

Historical view
Forbidden City, historical view
The imperial palace in Peking, wood engraving in Die Gartenlaube (1853). various, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Today
Forbidden City, today
Pixelflake, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Key facts

Country todayChina
StatusStanding
Date1420
Nearest city on the mapBeijing (about 2 km)
Location39.916° N, 116.397° E
Map showing Forbidden City in 1400Forbidden City
Border map for 1400. See the world in 1400.

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Who ruled this place

Derived from the border maps; each row runs until the next recorded border change.

PeriodState
500 BC–201 BCZhou states
200 BC–2 BCHan Empire
1 BC–299Han
300–399Jin
400–499Sixteen Kingdoms
500–599Toba Wei
600–699Sui Empire
700–999Tang Empire
1000–1199Liao
1200–1299Jin Empire
1300–1399Great Khanate
1400–1499Ming Empire
1500–1649Ming Chinese Empire
1650–1782Manchu Empire
1783–1814Qing Empire
1815–1919Manchu Empire
1920–1937Chinese Warlords
1938–1944Chinese warlords
1945–todayChina

Other landmarks nearby

Battles and sites nearby

More: Historic landmarks of China · All landmarks

Further reading

Last updated 9 November 2026. Sources: border data from historical-basemaps, land and rivers from Natural Earth; texts written for Chronica Maps from standard reference works. How we make the maps.