Ming Palace Ruins Park (Ming Gugong)

Ming Palace Ruins Park (Ming Gugong) occupies part of the former imperial palace grounds off Zhongshan East Road, near the Wuchaomen area of Qinhuai District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. The palace was built between 1366 and 1392 for Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor, and served as the seat of government while Nanjing was the Ming capital. When the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing in 1421, the Nanjing palace was retained as a secondary court, and its layout, with a north-south axis, outer and inner courts and a sequence of gates and halls, guided the design of Beijing's Forbidden City.

Most of the wooden palace was lost over the centuries. Fires and the Qing conquest reduced it, and mid-nineteenth-century fighting during the Taiping period destroyed much of what remained. What survives today is largely stone and earth: the foundations of the great halls, the raised platform of the Meridian Gate (Wumen) and the Wuchaomen gate, the Five Dragon Bridges (Wulongqiao) across the palace moat, and carved stone bases and balustrades. Excavations have exposed foundation platforms and drainage channels, giving a sense of the scale of the original court.

The site is arranged as an urban park, with lawns, pavilions and interpretive panels that describe the palace plan, and in places visitors can walk among the excavated stone bases. The approach is archaeological and spatial, and there are no galleries or staged displays. A small museum in the Wuchaomen gate and nearby sections adds further explanation, though it is less prominent than the park itself. Conservation work has focused on stabilising the surviving stonework and marking the outline of the vanished buildings. Admission is free and the grounds are open throughout the day, so the park suits a short visit or a walk between the Nanjing Museum and the city centre. Local residents use it for exercise and leisure, and it is quiet compared with the main tourist sites.