Overview
The Imperial Gardens at the Old Summer Palace were made up of three gardens:
- Garden of Perfect Brightness proper
- Garden of Eternal Spring (simplified Chinese: 长春园; traditional Chinese: 長春園; pinyin: Chángchūn Yuán)
- Elegant Spring Garden (simplified Chinese: 绮春园; traditional Chinese: 綺春園; pinyin: Qǐchūn Yuán)
Together, they covered an area of 3.5 square kilometres (860 acres), almost five times the size of the Forbidden City grounds and eight times the size of the Vatican City.
On the grounds stood hundreds of structures such as halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, gardens, lakes, and bridges. Several famous landscapes of southern China had been reproduced in the Imperial Gardens. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a catalog of 40 vistas that the garden offered was compiled. Hundreds of masterpieces of Chinese art and antiquities were stored in the halls, making the Imperial Gardens one of the largest collections in the world. Some unique copies of literary work and compilations were also stored inside the Imperial Gardens.
Read more about this topic: Old Summer Palace