Chengde Mountain Resorts (Chengde)

China / Hebei / Chengde
 resort, UNESCO World Heritage Site
Chengde mountain resort is in Hebei province as an imperial summer retreat and hunting grounds during the Qing Dynasty. At 564 square kilometres it’s the world’s largest imperial garden, though almost half of its area is taken up by the city of Chengde. The resort is a vast complex of palaces, administrative buildings and temples – more than 100 buildings in total – divided into the palace zone and the garden zone and enclosed by a wall 10,400 meters long. The whole thing took 89 years to build. The Rehe River, the shortest river in the world with a length of only 14.7 kilometres, runs through the resort. The Qing emperors would leave behind the heat of the city and retire to Chengde for the hottest months of the year. Outside the palace grounds, there stands the largest temple complex in China today. Originally, these were 11 temples constructed in a semi-circle and the slopes of a tall hill, but unfortunately only seven temples remain standing.In 1994, UNESCO listed the Mountain Resort and its surrounding temples as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/mountainresortchengde.h...
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengde_Mountain_Resort
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°59'36"N   117°55'39"E

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This article was last modified 13 years ago