Seat of supreme pow­er for over five cen­turies (1416–1911), the For­bid­den City in Bei­jing, with its land­scaped gar­dens and many build­ings (whose near­ly 10,000 rooms con­tain fur­ni­ture and works of art), con­sti­tutes a price­less tes­ti­mo­ny to Chi­nese civ­i­liza­tion dur­ing the Ming and Qing dynas­ties. The Impe­r­i­al Palace of the Qing Dynasty in Shenyang con­sists of 114 build­ings con­struct­ed between 1625–26 and 1783. It con­tains an impor­tant library and tes­ti­fies to the foun­da­tion of the last dynasty that ruled Chi­na, before it expand­ed its pow­er to the cen­tre of the coun­try and moved the cap­i­tal to Bei­jing. This palace then became aux­il­iary to the Impe­r­i­al Palace in Bei­jing. This remark­able archi­tec­tur­al edi­fice offers impor­tant his­tor­i­cal tes­ti­mo­ny to the his­to­ry of the Qing Dynasty and to the cul­tur­al tra­di­tions of the Manchu and oth­er tribes in the north of Chi­na.