Imperial City of Hue — palace
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Imperial City of Hue

  • 2 min read
  • 16.469° N 107.578° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • On the night of 5 July 1885, after a failed attack on the French, Emperor Hàm Nghi was spirited out of the citadel to lead a guerrilla resistance.
  • The citadel ramparts stand about 6.6 metres high and are roughly 21 metres thick, laid out in a zigzag pattern following Vauban's principles.
  • The Nine Holy Cannons, cast in bronze between 1803 and 1804, are named after the four seasons and the five elements and were declared a national treasure in 2012.
  • The Flag Tower facing the river was first raised in 1807; the concrete version standing today dates from 1948.
  • The Phu Văn Lâu pavilion, built in 1819 to display royal proclamations, is pictured on Vietnam's 50,000-dong banknote.
  • The moat ringing the Imperial City is called Kim Thủy, meaning Golden Water.
  • The outer citadel was entered through ten main gates, plus two water gates that let boats pass in and out along the canals.
  • In 1822 some 8,000 soldiers were set to work renovating Tịnh Tâm Lake, a pleasure lake inside the citadel walls.
  • Emperor Khải Định added the Kiến Trung Palace in 1921–1923, one of the last major buildings of the Nguyễn court.

Why it is worth it

When Nguyễn Phúc Ánh unified Vietnam in 1802 and took the name Gia Long, he chose Huế, the old seat of his family, as the capital, and set about building a court on the model of Beijing's Forbidden City inside a European-style fortress. The result is three enclosures, one inside the other, on the north bank of the Perfume River. The outer citadel, a Vauban-style rampart nearly 10 km round with a moat, was begun in 1805 and finished in 1832 under Minh Mạng. Within it lies the Imperial City, a square about 600 m a side behind its own wall and moat, and within that again the Purple Forbidden City, reserved for the emperor and his household. Unlike Beijing, the whole complex faces southeast towards the river rather than due south, following the advice of geomancers.

The main entrance is the Meridian Gate, Ngọ Môn, whose central passage was used by the emperor alone. Beyond it stands the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Điện Thái Hòa, the throne hall where coronations and court audiences took place. It was first built in 1805 and moved to its present position in 1833; inside, ironwood timbers, gilded plaques and panels inlaid with 197 paired poems and paintings give a sense of the court's refinement. In front of the Thế Miếu dynastic temple stand the Nine Dynastic Urns, bronze cauldrons cast on Minh Mạng's orders in 1835–1837, each named for an emperor and decorated with scenes of Vietnam's rivers, mountains, animals and products. They survived the wars intact.

Much else did not. After the last emperor, Bảo Đại, abdicated at the palace on 30 August 1945, the complex was fought over twice: in 1947, when French forces retook the citadel and the core of the palace burned, and in 1968, during the Tet Offensive, when weeks of house-to-house fighting left only a fraction of the buildings standing. Of some 160 buildings, only about ten major sites survived, and bullet scars are still visible. Walking through the Purple Forbidden City today you pass wide lawns and foundations between restored halls, galleries and gates, and restoration is ongoing.

The Imperial City was inscribed by UNESCO in 1993 as part of the Complex of Huế Monuments.

Getting there

The Imperial City lies on the north bank of the Perfume River in central Huế. Phu Bai International Airport (HUI) is about 15 km away. Taxis run from the airport to the citadel.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Vietnam 16The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Palaces 10The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 16The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Palaces 38The Most Beautiful Palaces 91The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 92The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

The Imperial City or Imperial Palace also known as Đại Nội (大內), is a royal enclosure within the walled city of Huế, the former imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty. It contains the palaces that housed the imperial family, as well as shrines, gardens, and offices for mandarins. Constructed in 1804 under Emperor Gia Long as a new capital and later re-modelled and enlarged to its current scale in 1833, it mostly served as a ceremonial function and imperial residence during the French colonial period. After the end of the monarchy in 1945, it suffered heavy damage and neglect during the Indochina Wars through the 1980s. The Imperial City was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993 as part of the Complex of Huế Monuments and is undergoing restoration.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

16.46944, 107.57778per Wikidata