Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Forbidden City trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Forbidden City trivia is about the biggest palace on Earth: 72 hectares of yellow-tiled halls in the exact centre of Beijing, home to 24 Ming and Qing emperors from 1420 until the last one was thrown out in 1924. Its name comes from the purple North Star and the fact that walking in uninvited got you executed. Its rooms are said to number 9,999, which is a myth, and its wooden buildings are, according to UNESCO, the largest collection of preserved ancient timber structures anywhere. This quiz covers the Yongle Emperor's move from Nanjing and the million-strong workforce, the nanmu logs and Suzhou 'golden bricks', the moat and the corner towers, the Meridian Gate and the Imperial Way, the three great halls of the Outer Court, the Xuanyuan Mirror, the 200-ton carved ramp dragged in on ice, the Inner Court, the Hall of Mental Cultivation and Cixi, the twelve consorts' palaces, the Nine Dragons Screen, roof statuettes and trigrams, Li Zicheng and the Manchus, the Boxer occupation, Puyi, the treasures shipped to Taipei, Zhou Enlai's guard battalion, the 1987 World Heritage listing, and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen a photo of Tiananmen; the expert tier assumes you know which gate has only eight rows of door nails. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on the Forbidden City, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many Ming and Qing emperors lived in the Forbidden City?
24
The palace housed 24 emperors in all: 14 of the Ming dynasty and 10 of the Qing, across roughly five centuries of imperial use.
Q 02In which year was construction of the Forbidden City completed?
1420
Construction was completed in 1420, fourteen years after work began in 1406, once the Ming court had moved its capital north to Beijing.
Q 03Which Ming emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and began building the Forbidden City?
Yongle
The Yongle Emperor, born Zhu Di, a son of the dynasty's founder, moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and ordered the palace built there.
Q 04Roughly how many workers were needed to build the Forbidden City?
More than a million
More than a million labourers are traditionally said to have worked on the palace over its fourteen years of construction, hauling timber and stone from across the empire.
Q 05The 'golden bricks' paving the floors of the major halls were specially baked in which city?
Suzhou
The 'golden bricks' (jinzhuan) were fired at kilns in Suzhou, in Jiangsu, and shipped north along the Grand Canal to pave the floors of the great halls.
Q 06The 'purple' in the Chinese name Zijincheng refers to what?
The North Star
The North Star, called the Ziwei star, was held to be the Celestial Emperor's heavenly seat; the palace was styled its earthly counterpart, hence 'Purple Forbidden City'.
Q 07What is the name of the northern gate of the Forbidden City?
The Gate of Divine Prowess
The Gate of Divine Prowess (Shenwumen) is the northern gate, facing Jingshan hill; it was originally the Gate of Black Warrior (Xuanwu), renamed to avoid the Kangxi Emperor's personal name.
Q 08By what name is the site most commonly known in modern Chinese?
Gugong
Gugong, meaning 'Former Palace', is the everyday Chinese name for the site; the institution housed within it is the Palace Museum, Gugong Bowuyuan.
Q 09How many bays of rooms have surveys actually counted in the Forbidden City?
8,886
Surveys count 8,886 bays of rooms across the 980 surviving buildings of the Forbidden City, well short of the 9,999 that legend claimed.
Q 10In which year did UNESCO list the Forbidden City as a World Heritage Site?
1987
UNESCO inscribed it in 1987 as the 'Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties'; the listing was extended in 2004 to include the Mukden Palace in Shenyang.
Q 11How many visitors did the Forbidden City receive in 2019?
More than 19 million
More than 19 million people visited in 2019, about 19.3 million by the Palace Museum's count, up from roughly 17 million the year before.
Q 12Which rebel leader took the Forbidden City in April 1644 and declared himself Shun emperor?
Li Zicheng
Li Zicheng, the peasant-rebel leader, entered Beijing in April 1644 as the last Ming emperor hanged himself; within weeks Manchu and turncoat Ming forces drove him out and he burned parts of the palace.
Q 13Which young emperor was proclaimed ruler of all China at the Forbidden City in October 1644?
Shunzhi
Q 21How long is the Forbidden City from north to south?
961 m
The walled rectangle measures 961 m from north to south and 753 m from east to west, and its central axis doubles as the central axis of old Beijing.
Q 22The palace's central axis is slightly off true north; researchers think it was aligned with which city?
Shangdu
Shangdu (Xanadu), the Yuan summer capital in Inner Mongolia, lies roughly along the extended axis; the tilt of about two degrees was inherited from the Yuan-era layout of Beijing.
Q 23How wide is the moat surrounding the Forbidden City?
52 m
The moat is 52 m wide and 6 m deep, a defensive ring just outside the palace wall.
The Shunzhi Emperor, a young child, was enthroned at the palace in October 1644 as ruler of all China; the Manchus then renamed halls to stress 'harmony' and made nameplates bilingual.
Q 14During which conflict did Anglo-French forces occupy the Forbidden City in 1860?
The Second Opium War
The Second Opium War brought Anglo-French troops into Beijing in 1860; they occupied the Forbidden City until the war's end and burned the Old Summer Palace nearby.
Q 15Which uprising in 1900 caused Empress Dowager Cixi to flee the Forbidden City?
The Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 brought the Eight-Nation Alliance into Beijing; Cixi fled west to Xi'an in disguise, and foreign troops held the palace until 1901.
Q 16Who was the final emperor to live in the Forbidden City?
Puyi
Puyi, the last Qing emperor, abdicated as a child in 1912 yet was allowed to keep living in the Inner Court under his abdication terms until warlord troops forced him out.
Q 17In which year was the last emperor evicted from the palace, ending 500 years as an imperial residence?
1924
In 1924 the warlord Feng Yuxiang seized Beijing and his troops expelled the former emperor from the Inner Court, ending the palace's five centuries as an imperial residence.
Q 18In which year was the Palace Museum established inside the Forbidden City?
1925
The Palace Museum opened on 10 October 1925, the anniversary of the 1911 revolution, with a collection built on the Ming and Qing imperial holdings.
Q 19The finest part of the palace collection, evacuated in 1948, is now a museum in which city?
Taipei
The finest pieces went to Taipei, where the National Palace Museum holds 2,972 of the 13,491 crates first evacuated ahead of the Japanese in the 1930s and shipped to Taiwan in 1948-49.
Q 20Who sent an army battalion to guard the Forbidden City during the Cultural Revolution?
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai, premier since 1949, sent an army battalion to guard the palace in 1966 as Red Guards attacked other heritage sites; its gates stayed sealed until 1971.
Q 24What is the name of the main southern entrance of the Forbidden City?
The Meridian Gate
The Meridian Gate (Wumen) is the southern entrance, a U-shaped gatehouse with two projecting wings and five archways, the central one kept for the emperor.
Q 25Which palace gate has only eight rows of golden door nails instead of nine?
The East Glorious Gate
The East Glorious Gate has eight rows of nails rather than the imperial nine: coffins of emperors and empresses left the palace through it, so it took the even, yin number.
Q 26Apart from the emperor, who was allowed to use the central Imperial Way through the main southern gate?
A new empress and top exam graduates
A new empress and top exam graduates were the only exceptions: the empress passed through on her wedding day, and the top three scholars of the palace examination left by it once.
Q 27How many bridges cross the Inner Golden Water River in the square inside the main southern gate?
5
The river is spanned by 5 marble bridges, the central one reserved for the emperor, in the square between the southern gate and the Gate of Supreme Harmony.
Q 28What is the largest building in the Forbidden City, used for enthronements and imperial weddings?
The Hall of Supreme Harmony
The Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihedian), the largest surviving wooden structure in China, rises about 30 metres above its square and hosted enthronements, imperial weddings and New Year audiences.
Q 29What is the set of metal balls hanging from the ceiling dragon in the largest hall called?
The Xuanyuan Mirror
The Xuanyuan Mirror is the cluster of metal balls that hangs from the mouth of the coiled dragon in the ceiling caisson, named for Xuanyuan, a legendary sovereign of Chinese antiquity.
Q 30The final stage of the Imperial Examination was held in which building of the Outer Court?
The Hall of Preserving Harmony
The Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohedian), northernmost of the three great halls, hosted the palace examination, the final stage of the imperial exams, and was otherwise used for rehearsing ceremonies.