Changes

==Layout==

==Layout==

The Forbidden City complex covers a massive area, roughly a quarter of a square mile for the palace proper at the height of the Ming, and includes a great many buildings and gates. It sat within the Imperial City, a three-square-mile area closed to the general public and generally seen only by scholar-bureaucrats and others of the government and palace. This larger area included, among many other facilities, gardens and lakes, residences for the palace eunuchs, bakeries, confectioneries, banquet halls, stables, armories, printers, a book depository, temples, imperial residences, and supply depots, rendering the Imperial City, essentially, self-sufficient. The palace was staffed by as many as 20,000 eunuchs and 3,000 women.<ref>Ray Huang, ''1587: A Year of No Significance'', Yale University Press (1981), 12-13.</ref>

The Forbidden City complex covers a massive area, roughly a quarter of a square mile for the palace proper at the height of the Ming, and includes a great many buildings and gates. It sat within the Imperial City, a three-square-mile area closed to the general public and generally seen only by scholar-bureaucrats and others of the government and palace. This larger area included, among many other facilities, gardens and lakes, residences for the palace eunuchs, bakeries, confectioneries, banquet halls, stables, armories, printers, a book depository, temples, imperial residences, and supply depots, rendering the Imperial City, essentially, self-sufficient. The palace was staffed by as many as 20,000 eunuchs and 3,000 women.<ref>Ray Huang, ''1587: A Year of No Significance'', Yale University Press (1981), 12-13.</ref> As many as several hundred consorts and concubines of the emperor also lived within the palace walls.<ref>Huang, 28.</ref>

===Forbidden Palace===

===Forbidden Palace===