Now we are glad to exhibit the largest imperial garden in China---- the Summer Palace.
The Summer Palace is located on the northskirts of Beijing. It is the best-preserved and largest imperial garden existing in China. The Summer Palace is formed mainly with Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake. The lake occupied three quarters of the whole area. It covers an area of over 290 hectares.
The Summer Palace was first built as an imperial garden and palace at the beginning of 12th century in the Jin dynasty, the construction continued to the Yuan and Ming dynasties and the palace was enlarged in Qing dynasty, thus,altogether lasting for more than 800 years.The whole project was named the Three Hills and Five Gardens. the Summer Palace was part of it.as that time it was named the Garden of Clear Ripples.in 1860 the Anglo-French Allied Forces invaded Beijing and the three Hills and Five Gardens were burnt down to ashes.In 1888,Empress Dowager Cixi diverted the funds for navy to restore the Garden of Clear Ripples and renamed it as the Summer Palace.In 1900 the Allied Forces of Eight Powers invaded Beijing and occupied the summer palace for more than a year. The Summer Palace was plundered by the invaders. They took away everything valuable and destroyed the buildings. Upon Empress Cixi's return to Beijing, she ordered the garden to be built immediately. When reconstruction was completed, Empress Dowager Cixi came to live in this garden from April to October every year for the rest of her life.
In 1924 the Summer Palace was turned into a public park. there are hundreds of buildings, pavilions, towers, islands, bridges and hills. all of them will give you a wonderful and visual impressions.

The Long Corridor actually is a long walkway. It starts from the gate of the greeting the moon in the east and ends the marble boat in the west. It is 728 meters long with 273 sections, so it is called the long corridor.There are totally 14,000 pictures painted on the beams and crossbeams of the long corridor.Each of these pictures is different from one another, with almost no repetitions. In 1990, the Long Corridor was listed in the Guinness world records as the longest painted corridor in the world.