Beihai (North Sea) Park

Beihai (North Sea) Park is located at the center of Beijing, just northwest to the Forbidden City. Together with the South Lake and the Central Lake, which today is the nerve center of the Communist Party, it constituted the West Lake in the ancient times. In Liao, Jin and Yuan dynasties, it served as a detached palace for the rulers before being turned into an imperial garden in Ming and Qing dynasties. Today it stands as one of the most aged and best intact imperial garden in China that represents the culmination of garden design art.

Layout of the park, with the main components being one lake and three hills, is an example of traditional imperial garden design that uncovers the persistent pursuit of longevity of ancient emperors, as there was a far-back legend telling the existence of three elfland’s hills where inhabited immortals with longevity medicine at the east of Bohai Sea. After painstaking endeavors of tracing such elixirs that came to no avail, the emperors spent their last effort in building imitations of "elfland’s hills and jeweled Palaces". Thus, Beihai Lake, taking up over a half of the total area of 68 hectares, represents Bohai Sea, while the Jade Islet, the Circular City and the Xishantai, with the later two used to be enclosed by water are regarded as the three hills. On the Jade Islet, the main body of the park, erects the White Dagoba, which is supposed to be the name card of this scenic spot. It is said it was built out of the request of a Tibetan Lama who prayed for felicity and safety of the emperor in the way of preaching Buddhism. Another treasure of the park is a jade statue of Sakyamuni placed in the Circular City at the south bank of lake, who wears an incised wound that telling the miserable history of the park being sacked by the Eight Power Allied Forces in 1900.