World Cultural Heritage: The Summer Palace (6)

Truthfulness and integrity:

In 1908, the Empress Dowager Ci Xi and Emperor Guangxu died, and the Summer Palace's role as a royal garden also ended. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution succeeded and the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, and the Summer Palace was opened to the public as a park until today. The Summer Palace was preserved extremely well and accords with the "truthfulness" and "integrity" standards for selecting world heritage.

Heritage value

The Summer Palace is the only 100-percent preserved garden in the Qing Dynasty's royal gardens "Three Hills and Five Gardens." It absorbed the essence of China's classic architecture and contains different garden styles of various regions. The palace and court area in the east is the typical northern quad style, and the closed quads are connected one by one with tourist corridors. The lake area in the south is the typical Hangzhou West Lake style. With a "Su Causeway" dividing the lake into two parts, this area is really "southern" for sure. The area to the north of the Hill of Longevity is the Tibetan Lama Temple style, and in this area, tourists can see white towers and pillbox-shaped buildings. In the Suzhou Street in the northern part of the Palace, many shops and stores stand in line and water ways spread vertically and horizontally. It is a typical water town style. In fact, the Summer Palace can be called the museum of garden architectures.