Chengde city - China

Chengde (Chinese: 承德; pinyin: Chéngdé) is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, People's Republic of China, situated northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden formerly used by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty. The urban center had a population of approximately 450,000 as of 2009.
Chengde is an 18th-century imperial resort, about 250 km northeast of Beijing, that is also known as Jehol or “Rehe.” It was discovered by the early Qing emperor Kangxi in the late 17th century, who found the cool summer climate and natural scenery appealing as a summer retreat. Kangxi and his successors built some 72 palaces there by the end of the 18th century, along with replicas of the Potala Palace of the Tibetan Buddhist lamas. Today Chengde is a popular tourist center and now a summer retreat for Beijing urbanites.
In September 1793 Chengde was the site of the first British Embassy to China under Lord Macartney, whose part made the long journey from Beijing after finding that the Qianlong emperor had already decamped there for the summer. Macartney refused to prostrate himself before the emperor, and brought gifts from the British East India Company that were designed to open trade with China. The Qianlong emperor turned down his request, declaring that China already possessed all things, and had no use for objects of British manufacture. Although China was still near the height of its military power and commercial prosperity under Qianlong, his refusal to engage the emerging European powers on the verge of the Industrial Revolution may have contributed to China's rapid decline as a world power.
Chengde came to be seen as unlucky after two 19th-century Chinese emperors died there, including the Jiaqing emperor who was struck down by lightning near the palace in 1820. The complex was largely neglected during the 20th century and still bears many traces of that neglect, although ongoing restoration projects were begun in the 1980's.
The project of building Chengde Mountain Resort started in 1703 and finished in 1790. The whole mountain resort covers an area 5,640,000 square meters. It is the largest royal garden in China. The wall of the mountain resort is over 10,000 meters in length. In summers, emperors of Qing Dynasty came to the mountain resort to relax themselves and escape from the high temperature in Beijing.
The whole Resort can be divided into three areas which are lakes area, plains area and hills area. The lakes area, which includes 8 lakes, covers an area of 496,000 square meters. The plains area covers an area of 607,000 square meters. The emperors held horse races and hunted in the area. The largest area of the three is the hills area. It covers an area of 4,435,000 square meters. Hundreds of palaces and temples were built on the hills in this area.
The elaborate Mountain Resort features large parks with lakes, pagodas, and palaces ringed by a wall. Outside the wall are the Eight Outer Temples (外八庙), built in varying architectural styles drawn from throughout China. One of the best-known of these is the Putuo Zongcheng Temple, built to resemble the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. The resort and outlying temples were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The nearby Puning Temple, built in 1755, houses the world's tallest wooden statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.
Chengde's older name of Rehe (or Jehol) came from the name for the local river (热河; Pinyin: Rèhé) which translates as "hot river." The river was so named because it did not freeze in the winter. Most sections of the river are currently dry because of a new damming project.
Another popular attraction of the Chengde area is Sledgehammer Peak (磬锤峰), a large rock formation in the shape of an inverted sledgehammer. A variety of other mountains, valleys, and grasslands lie within the borders of the city.