Palace Museum

The Palace Museum, also known as the Beijing Palace Museum, is a large national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With 720,000 square metres, the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynasties of China and opened to the public in 1925 after the last Emperor of China, the Xuantong Emperor, was evicted in 1924.

Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the museum consists of 980 buildings. It is home to over 1.8 million pieces of art, mostly from the imperial collection of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The 20th century saw its expansion through new acquisitions, transfers from other museums, and new archaeological discoveries.