Taiye Lake

About

Taiye Lake or Taiye Pond was an artificial lake in imperial City, Beijing, during the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China. The beauty and utility of the lake was responsible for the siting of Kublai Khan's palace and the position of modern Beijing. It continues to exist but it is now known separately as the North, Central, and South Seas, the three interconnected lakes just west of the Forbidden City in downtown Beijing. The northern lake makes up the public Beihai Park while the southern two are grouped together as Zhongnanhai, the headquarters for the Communist leadership of the People's Republic of China. Taiye Lake was immortalized in the early 1410s when the Yongle Emperor commissioned The Eight Views of Beijing, recording the capital's chief sites in poetry and painting in order to legitimize his removal of the imperial capital away from Nanking. It is best remembered in China today from the scene of "Clear Waves at Taiye Lake" (Tàiyè Qíngbō).

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.