Forbidden City entrance and exit gates

The flow is one-way. This is not a maze; there is only one correct direction. You will not get lost because there is nowhere else to go.

The Meridian Gate faces Tiananmen Square and is where your real-name booking is verified. The crowds are worst here in the morning. The Gate of Divine Might is the north exit, and from there Jingshan Park is 100 metres west.

If you arrive late in the afternoon and exit around 16:00 or 16:30, the exit gate is calmer than the entrance. Most visitors have either already left or are still somewhere in the middle. The nearest metro to the north exit is Line 8 to Shichahai.

Why “which entrance is best” is the wrong question

People arrive expecting a choice between gates, the way you would choose a door at the Louvre or a side entrance at the Vatican. There is no choice here. The palace has exactly one public way in and exactly one public way out, and they are fixed. Wumen admits; Shenwumen releases. The other two great gates in the outer wall — Donghuamen in the east and Xihuamen in the west — are not public entrances. Whatever a map shows you, do not plan around them.

The one real decision you have is what time you present yourself at Wumen, and the trade there is straightforward: the first hour after opening is the coolest and the most crowded, and the last two hours before last entry are the reverse.

What actually happens at the Meridian Gate

You queue in the square in front of the gate. Your passport is scanned and checked against the real-name booking held under that number — the passport is the ticket, so it needs to be the physical document, not a photograph of it. Bags go through a scanner. Then you walk through the gate tunnel and the first courtyard opens in front of you, which is the moment most people stop dead, because nothing about the approach prepares you for the scale of it.

If you are coming up from Tiananmen Square, note that the square has its own separate security check with its own ID scan. Doing both means two checks, not one, and the square’s comes first because of the geography.

Plan your afternoon from the north

This is the practical consequence of the one-way rule and the one people most often overlook. Anything you arrange at the south end — a friend waiting, a hotel you walked from, a restaurant you booked near the square — is a kilometre-plus walk around the outside of the moat by the time you are done. Whereas Jingshan Park is directly across the road from where you come out, and the hutong streets behind it are the obvious place to eat. Build the rest of the day northwards and the geography works with you instead of against you.

Frequently asked questions