Old Summer Palace

|t=圓明園|s=圆明园|p=Yuánmíng Yuán|l=Gardens of Perfect Brightness|s2=御园|t2=御園|p2=Yù Yuán|altname=Imperial Gardens|order=st}} The Old Summer Palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan () or Yuanmingyuan Park, originally called the Imperial Gardens (), and sometimes called the Winter Palace, was a complex of palaces and gardens in present-day Haidian District, Beijing, China. It is north-west of the walls of the former Imperial City section of Beijing. Widely perceived as the pinnacle work of Chinese imperial garden and palace design, the Old Summer Palace was known for its extensive collection of gardens, its building architecture and numerous art and historical treasures. Constructed throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Old Summer Palace was the main imperial residence of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty and his successors, and where they handled state affairs; the Forbidden City was used for formal ceremonies. The Garden was reputed as the "Garden of Gardens" () in its heyday was "arguably the greatest concentration of historic treasures in the world, dating and representing a full 5,000 years of an ancient civilization", according to Stuart McGee, chaplain to the British forces.

During the Second Opium War, French and British troops captured the palace on 6 October 1860, looting and destroying the imperial collections over the next few days. As news emerged that an Anglo-French delegation had been imprisoned by the Qing government, with 19 delegation members being sentenced to death, the 8th Earl of Elgin, the British High Commissioner to China, retaliated by ordering the complete destruction of the palace on 18 October, which was then carried out by troops under his command. The palace was so large – covering more than – that it took 4,000 men and three days to destroy it. Many exquisite artworks – sculptures, porcelain, jade, silk robes, elaborate textiles, gold objects and more – were looted and, according to UNESCO, are now located in 47 museums around the world. Provided by Wikipedia