Chengde Mountain Resort
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| Mountain Resort and its Outlying Temples, Chengde* | |
|---|---|
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
 |
|
| State Party |  China |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | ii, iv |
| Reference | 703 |
| Region† | Asia-Pacific |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 1994 (18th Session) |
| * Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO. |
|
The Mountain Resort in Chengde (Chinese: 避暑山庄; pinyin: Bìshǔ Shānzhuāng; literally: Mountain Resort for Avoiding the Heat; Manchu: 
Halhūn be jailara gurung) or Ligong (Chinese: 离宫; pinyin: Lígōng, the Qing Dynasty's summer palace) situated in the city of Chengde in Hebei Province, China, is the world's largest existing imperial garden.
Built between 1703 and 1792, the Mountain Resort took 89 years to complete. It covers a total area of 5.6 km², almost half of Chengde's urban area. It is a vast complex of palaces and administrative and ceremonial buildings. Temples of various architectural styles and imperial gardens blend harmoniously into a landscape of lakes, pastureland and forests. In addition to its aesthetic interest, the Mountain Resort is a rare historic vestige of the final development of feudal society in China.
The Kangxi, Qianlong and Jiaqing Emperors often spent several months a year here to escape the summer heat in the capital city of Beijing and the palace zone in the southern part of the resort was therefore designed to resemble the Forbidden City in Beijing. It consists of two parts: a court in front, where the emperor received high officials, nobles of various minority nationalities, and foreign envoys; and bed chambers in the rear, which were the imperial family's living quarters.
True to its name, the Mountain Resort is known to be at least 3 degrees Celsius cooler than Chengde City itself.
[edit] Scenic spots
The Mountain Resort is most famous for the 72 scenic spots which were named by the Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors. Many of the scenic spots around the resort's lake area were copied from famous landscaped gardens in Southern China. For instance, the main building on Green Lotus Island, "Tower of Mist and Rain," (Chinese: 烟雨楼; pinyin: Yānyǔ Lóu) is a copy of a tower in Nanhu Lake at Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province. The resort's plain area possesses characteristics of the scenery of the Mongolian grasslands. Forested mountains and valleys are dotted with various buildings. This includes the Sarira Pagoda, a 70 m tall stone Chinese pagoda built in the year 1751 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. The pagoda is shaped with an octagonal base, while the pagoda's nine stories are decorated with colorful glazed tiles and the steeple is crowned with a gilded round spire.
In December 1994 the Mountain Resort was listed by UNESCO on its list of World Heritage Sites.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Hevia, James Louis. "World Heritage, National Culture, and the Restoration of Chengde." positions: east asia cultures critique 9, no. 1 (2001): 219-43.
