Yuanmingyuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness) is located in Haidian District, twenty kilometers from the northwest suburbs of Beijing, next to the
Summer Palace.

Yuanmingyuan covered an area of over 350 hectares with 108 scenic spots and an architectural
area of 170,000 square meters. In 1707, the first garden was built on this site by the second
Qing Emperor Kangxi. Later, in the next 150 years, the garden was constantly expanded through
the reigns of five emperors: Emperor Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Xianfeng.
Finally, it became an imperial summer resort in Beijing’s western suburbs, and one of the
largest imperial gardens in the world at the time.

Originally, Yuanmingyuan was a group of gardens, composed of three comparatively
independent but interconnected gardens; they were: Yuanmingyuan (Garden of Perfect
Splendor), Changchunyuan (Garden of Eternal Spring) and Qichunyuan (Garden of Blossoming
Spring). Because Yuanmingyuan was first to be constructed and the largest in size among the
three gardens, the group of gardens was called Yuanmingyuan.

The unique architecture of Yuanmingyuan was not only inherited and developed from the traditional gardening art of China but also incorporated
some European horticultural techniques. Hundreds of scenic spots in Yuanmingyuan are made up of exquisitely constructed halls, pavilions,
chambers, kiosks, earth and rock hills, rivers and ponds, and exotic flowers and grasses from different parts of the country.

The artistic achievements gained not only a brilliant page in the history of Chinese architectural
construction, but was also extolled by the Europeans as the “Garden of Gardens in the World”
and the “Versailles of the East”. It is really a “wonder of human civilization”. But, unfortunately,
this beautiful site, a wonder of human civilization, was sacked, looted and burned down by the
Anglo-French Allied Forces in October 1860.

Nowadays, after years of renovation, many parts of the water system and hills have been
restored, some of its original splendor has reappeared, and a number of important sites have
been repaired.