Daming Palace was built in 634 as a residence for the founding emperor's father and became the main imperial palace of the Tang dynasty from 663 onwards. At its height it covered about 3.2 square kilometres, roughly four and a half times the area of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and it served as the seat of government for more than two centuries until the Tang capital was destroyed in 904.
What survives
Almost nothing stands above ground. What remains are the rammed-earth platforms, foundations and wall lines of the great halls and gates, excavated by archaeologists and left in place. The site opened as a national heritage park in 2010, with the ruins protected under cover, planted landscapes between them and a museum explaining the excavations.
Hanyuan Hall and Danfeng Gate
The centrepiece of any visit is the platform of Hanyuan Hall, the main ceremonial hall, which stood about fifteen metres above the ground on a vast earthen base with a double staircase. From the top of the platform you look south down the axis of the park through the reconstructed Danfeng Gate, and it becomes easy to picture the scale: the gate was about 75 metres wide with five separate passageways, and the approach square in front could hold tens of thousands of people.
Visiting
The park is in the north of the city, reached by Metro Line 2 to Daminggong West or by Line 4 to Daminggong. The outer park is free and open from early morning to evening; the protected ruins area, the museum and the shuttle carts inside require a ticket, roughly 60 to 95 yuan depending on what you include. Allow two to three hours, more if you walk the full length from the south gate to the northern lake.
Why it is worth the trip
Daming Palace explains the Tang dynasty in a way that objects in a museum cannot, because you are standing on the level from which the empire was governed at the moment when Xi'an was the largest city in the world. Combined with the Tang West Market Museum and the Shaanxi History Museum, it rounds out the Tang story completely.
