This week’s featured UNESCO World Heritage Site was the home of the last two great Chinese dynasties: the Ming and the Qing. Once, the Forbidden City was the center of the Chinese empire. Nobody could enter or leave without the permission of the emperor, hence the name.

The last emperor of China was kicked out of the palace in 1924, and the Forbidden City is now the Palace Museum, open to anyone who can pay the fees. Still, it continues to impress and delight visitors.

Part of the Forbidden City’s grandeur comes simply from its scale. It is the largest palace complex in the world, and took 15 years to build. When the trees were cut down for the main hall, records indicate that the massive trunks were too big for workers to move.  Instead, they had to wait for floods to wash them into the river, then guide them to the city using boats.

But it’s not just the enormity of the Forbidden City that’s impressive. The entire complex is painstakingly designed and flawlessly executed. UNESCO says that “The buildings of the Forbidden City fully embody the artistic features and style of ancient Chinese palace architecture, and can be called a masterpiece in Chinese, even world, architectural history.”

To see the Forbidden City, you’ll need a passport and a Chinese visa, naturally. To familiarize yourself with the Chinese visa process, see Chinese Visa Requirements for Tourists.

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You could literally spend weeks touring this week’s featured UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas includes 1.7 million hectares of land inside China’s Three Parallel Rivers National Park.

The three rivers in question are among the largest and most important in Asia: the Yangtze, the Mekong and the Salween. Although their courses take them far away from each other, they run roughly parallel in Yunnan province, slicing deep gorges into the steep mountains.

According to UNESCO, “The deep, parallel gorges of the Jinsha, Lancang and Nu Jiang are the outstanding natural feature of the site; while large sections of the three rivers lie just outside the site boundaries, the river gorges are nevertheless the dominant scenic element in the area. High mountains are everywhere, with the glaciated peaks of the Meili, Baima and Haba Snow Mountains providing a spectacular scenic skyline.”

The Three Parallel Rivers National Park also protects an amazingly diverse collection of flora and fauna. UNESCO calls it “one of the world’s most important remaining areas for the conservation of the earth’s biodiversity. Inside the protected areas you’ll find 3 different species of leopard, monkeys, gibbons, the red panda, a type of “goat antelope” called the takin and many others.

The region is also home to 25 different minority groups, many of whom still live in their original villages and have clung to their traditional culture.

To visit this World Heritage Site, you’ll need a valid passport and a Chinese visa. You must apply for your visa before you leave the US – while many countries allow US citizens to apply for a visa on arrival at the airport, China is not one of them. For more information about what you need, see Chinese Visa Requirements for Tourists.

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