The Summer Palace is the largest imperial garden in the world and a museum of classical Chinese garden architecture.

The initial construction of the Summer Palace began in 1750, commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother's birthday. The construction took 15 years to complete. It had the name "Qingyi Yuan" (Garden of Clear Ripples) at that time. The plundering of foreign troops in 1860 destroyed most of the buildings, but they were renovated in 1888 by Empress Dowager Cixi (the "dragon lady"), with funds embezzled from the Imperial Navy. The construction lasted for ten years and after completion, she renamed it "Yiheyuan"— Garden of Peace and Harmony. In 1900, the garden was plundered again, and rebuilt again when the fugitive Cixi returned to Beijing in 1903. The Summer Palace of today is more or less the same as the palace rebuilt in 1903. After the last Qing Emperor Puyi was thrown out of the Summer Palace in 1924, this garden was turned into a park.