Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden in the Qing dynasty. Inside includes Longevity Hill Kunming Lake and Seventeen Hole Bridge. It covers an expanse of , three-quarters of which is water. Longevity Hill is about high and has many buildings positioned in sequence. The front hill is rich with splendid halls and pavilions, while the back hill, in sharp contrast, is quiet with natural beauty. The central Kunming Lake, covering , was entirely man-made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. Inspired by the gardens in South China, the Summer Palace, there are over 3,000 various Chinese ancient buildings that house a collection of over 40,000 kinds of valuable historical relics from each dynasty. In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value".