Beijing's Forbidden City has been illuminated and opened to the general public for night visits for the first time to celebrate China's Lantern Festival.

The way insideThe Meridian Gate is the main entrance to the Forbidden City at its most southern point. Here the wall surrounding the complex reaches a height of more than 40 feet.

The opening of wings of the Meridian Gate and East Prosperity Gate will enable visitors to walk on the walls of the Forbidden City for the first time.

Li’s day starts at about 7.30am as it has done for the last 38 years, when he and his team push open perhaps the best known gate in China – the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, according ...

Shan also said the Palace Museum will open 28 ticket booths on the square between the Meridian Gate and the Upright Gate (Duanmen), to significantly cut short the waiting time for visitors.

I had expected to feel awe as I approached the Meridian Gate guarding what most Chinese call the Great Within—Beijing's Forbidden City—but I'm surprised to feel apprehension, too. After all ...

Inside the deep-red walls of The Forbidden City, past the infamous Meridian Gate, which faces Tiananmen Square, there are 90 separate palaces and more than 9000 rooms - the largest royal palace ...

For years, photographer Shang Junyi has frequently traversed the vast expanse of the Palace Museum, venturing from the imposing Meridian Gate to the solemn Shenwu Gate, and navigating among the ...

Most visitors enter the Palace from the Forbidden City. From here, visitors will cross the large paved square to the main entrance into the palace: the Meridian Gate.

Entrance to the Forbidden City . iStock Visitors enter through the Meridian Gate, and the first of many astonishments is a vast courtyard beyond that fits 100,000 people.

As weary visitors learn, there are only four entrance gates and it takes 20 minutes to walk the north-south axis from the Gate of Spiritual Valor to the Meridian Gate.

The Wumen Gate wall of the Forbidden City is illuminated during the Lantern Festival in Beijing on Tuesday. For the first time, Beijing's famed Palace Museum was illuminated and opened for night ...