Chengde Summer Resort Picture

The Imperial Summer Resort was the largest imperial garden in the Qing Dynasty. It covers an area of 5.64 million square meters, is twice as big as the Summer Palace in Beijing. The imperial theme of "collecting the world scene in one garden, moving the best beauty to one place" is represented in the garden, which combines the grace of South China with the grandeur of North China. The construction of Imperial Summer Resort was started in 1703; after 89 years, until the year 1792, its 124 groups of constructions had been finished, in which there were 72 scenic sites named by the Emperor at that time. The whole construction area is about 100,000 square meters. The Imperial Summer Resort can be divided into the palace zone, the lake zone, the mountain zone and the plain zone. In the south it is the palace zone consisting of former Palace, Pine & Crane House, East Palace and Million Valleys and Pines, four groups of structures. The palace zone has become the Royal Art Museum and the place for recovering historic legacy of the palace of the Qing Dynasty.