The Forbidden City was the Chinese Imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China. It now houses the Palace Museum. The complex consists of 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms. It covers 720,000 square metres. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties",[1] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.