The Forbidden City Opens Up

The Palace Museum， located in the Forbidden City in Beijing， marked its 90th anniversary on October 10. Once the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties（1368-1911）， it now houses numerous national treasures.

The museum is holding a series of exhibitions of rarely seen artifacts to mark the anniversary， including Along the River During Qingming Festival， a 528-cm-long painting from the Northern Song Dynasty （960-1127）.

The exhibitions have drawn a large crowd with long queues to buy tickets and many tourists staying until 10 p.m. The precious items on display have piqued interest in Chinas history and helped quench the publics thirst for more knowledge about Chinese art and culture.

The goal of the museum since it opened to the public has been to enable more people to experience the imperial treasures. It not only displays the palaces in their original condition， but also hosts over 40 exhibitions showcasing nearly 10，000 artifacts every year.

Five new areas on the palace grounds have opened this year， expanding the areas available to the public from 30 percent of the total in 2002 to 65 percent. For instance， visitors can now take a stroll on top of a section of the city wall and have a closer look at the Southeast Corner Tower， which could only be viewed from a distance in the past.

Digital experiences are another highlight. A digital exhibition hall just outside the southern entrance to the Palace Museum will open by the end of the year， providing virtual tours of some of the still-closed areas and key collections. Other digital exhibition halls in its northern and central parts will open to the public in the near future.

As a world-renowned cultural heritage site， the Palace Museum attaches great importance to exchanges and cooperation with other museums and international organizations. An academy founded by the museum in 2013 has held three training sessions on the former imperial palaces history and culture as well as cultural heritage preservation. A total of 98 trainees from around the world attended the sessions.

Staff has worked hard over the past nine decades to protect the Palace Museum and its treasures and open more areas to the public. It is expected that by 2020， 80 percent of the grounds will be open to the public and the Palace Museum will attract 15 million visitors annually.