GardenThe Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan & the Western Hills
YUANMINGYUAN (OLD SUMMER PALACE) RUINS PARK · YUANMINGYUAN
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VERIFIED2026.09.11The Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan & the Western Hills · 40.005°N 116.295°E
TicketedClosure day
The 'Garden of Gardens' that five Qing emperors built over 150 years and an Anglo-French force looted and burnt in October 1860 — 350 hectares of lakes, islands and foundations next door to the Summer Palace, kept as a ruin on purpose. What every visitor comes for is the small north-east corner: the Western-style palaces the Jesuits designed for Qianlong, whose broken marble columns at the Great Fountain are China's most famous image of the century of humiliation. That corner is a separate ¥15 ticket inside the ¥10 park (¥25 for the whole thing), open from 7:00 to dusk, no closure day, and, unusually, a full English notice on the park's own site.
EntranceLine 4 Yuanmingyuan station, Exit B, is at the south (Qichun Garden) gate; the Western Mansions are 2 km north-east of it inside the park — allow 30 minutes' walk or the park shuttle
Last verified 2026-09-11
How to book
Ticket offices at the Qichun Garden gate, Changchun Garden east gate, Ergong Gate and Zaoyuan Gate; online only via the park's WeChat mini-program (official: 请认准圆明园官方微信公众号). The 2020 price notice made the Zhengjue Temple gate online-only during an exhibition — whether that still holds is not publishedVerified · 2020-12Source ↗
ID details
ID rules: see details. Show your ticket or concession document at the gate (visitor rules, Dec 2023); no ID rule for full-price tickets on the pages we read
Beat the crowds
The Great Fountain ruins are busy 10:00-16:00 on weekends and holidays; the rest of the 350 hectares is empty at any hour. Lotus season (July-August) and the ginkgo avenues in November are the two times the lakes draw locals; winter is bleak and honest.
Language
The park's visitor rules are published in English on its own site; the exhibition hall at the ruins and the main boards are bilingual; the audio guide (rental at the gates) has an English track.