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 Located in northeast Hebei Province,250 kilometers from Beijing,Chengde is one of the 24 famous historical and cultural cities and one of the 44 major tourist attractions in China.Surrounded by mountains and with brooks and strams running through the city,Chengde has beautiful scenery and a pleasant climate.It is here that the austere,elegant Chengde Mountain Resort,the grand “Eight Outer Temples”and the strange hills and crags combine to make Chengde a city of scenic and historical interest with a special and rational layout,as well as a tourist attraction well known both at home and abroad. the Imperial Summer Resort The Chengde Imperial Summer Resort(Bishushangzhuang) or literally “Mountain Hamlet to Flee the Heat” in the northern part of the city was the biggest garden of the imperial family in the Qing Dynasty. In order to consolidate the unity of the multi-national state and pacity the frontier areas,Emperor Kangxi,the second emperor of the Qing Dynasty,made many inspection tours in North China.During his inspection tours,he found that Chengde with its proximity to the capital of Beijing was beautiful in scenery and pleasant in climate.Therefore,in 1703 he decided to have a summer resort built here.Construction of the project was completed in 1790 lasting 87 years.Within the Mountain Resort,there are more than 100 individual halls,pavilions,studios,pagodas and terraces.Each of these complexes scattered throughout the park,consisting of more than 100 complexes has its poetic name.Every year both Qing emperors Kangxi and Qianglong spent about six months enjoying the cool and handling government affairs here.Because the Qing rulers could not accustom to Beijing's hot dry summers and sought relief by traveling north of the Great Wall.After the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911,the Mountain Hamlet to Flee the Heat had been left in disrepair.Since 1949,the new China has listed it as a major historical monument under the state protection and allocated a large sum of money to have it restored.Nowadays,it has taken a completely new look and become a bustling tourist destination. |
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