when was the forbidden city opened to the public
Forbidden City After being the home of 24 emperors – 14 of the Ming dynasty and 10 of the Qing dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use,[19] until he was evicted after a coup in 1924.[20] The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925.[21] In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.[22] Part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,[23] but the other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 under orders by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public, as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.[24]
World's largest palace The title of "world's largest palace by area enclosed within the palace's fortified walls" is held by China's Summer Palace complex in Beijing, which covers an area of 720,000 square meters (178 acres). The 980 buildings of the Forbidden City have a combined floor space of 1,614,600 square feet (150,001Â m2) and contain roughly 9,000 rooms.