The Summer Palace is a vast complex of lakes, gardens, and palaces in Beijing. While it was an imperial garden in Qing Dynasty, the Summer Palace dates back to the Jin dynasty in 1153, when the Jin capital was moved from Huining Prefecture to Yanjing in the Fragrant Hills and Jade Spring Hill in the northwest of Beijing.
In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace “a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value”.
