Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang

Behind the walls of Beijing's Forbidden City, nearly 10,000 furnished rooms held the machinery of Chinese imperial power from 1416 to 1911, through the Ming and Qing dynasties. The World Heritage listing, made by UNESCO in 1987, pairs it with the Imperial Palace at Shenyang: 114 buildings begun in 1625–26 as the seat of the rising Qing before they took Beijing, and a monument to Manchu tradition as much as to dynastic ambition.