July 12, 2008

Tiananmen visit


Tian An Men Square

天安门广场

On July 7th, 2008 at 9:30 A.M. my family, a friend, and I went to Tian An Men Square, the largest public square in the world. It is 440,000 m2 and can hold 1 million people.

The layout of this square is very simple, the South side of the square has Mao Zedong’s Memorial Hall ( it holds the embalmed body of Chairman Mao, it was completed in 1977), on the North end of Tian An Men Square is the Forbidden City it was a large fortress once, but now it is a big tourist attraction. It was completed in 1417 during the Ming Dynasty. The West end of the square holds the Great Hall of People or the Peoples Congress (it was completed in 1959), on the East side is the History Museum it opened in 1961 ( right now it is under rennovation). South of the Memorial Hall is the First Gate that used to be the entrance for a no longer existing wall that surrounded the city. It was built from 1402-24, and in the center of the Tian An Men Square is the Memorial for Soldiers ( built either in 1954 or 1958, this information is not clear).

Even if this layout is simple there are almost too many interesting things to see.









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posted by Devin

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