Palace of Earthly Tranquility, Imperial palace in Forbidden City, China

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility is the northernmost of the three main halls of the Forbidden City's Inner Court. It is nine bays wide and three bays deep, with a double-tiered hip roof of yellow glazed tiles, dark red upper walls and red pillars along the front colonnade. The building stands on a weathered grey stone base.

Built in 1420 under the Yongle emperor, the hall burned down in 1514 and 1596 and was rebuilt in 1605. In 1644 Empress Zhou, wife of the Chongzhen emperor, took her own life here as Li Zicheng's forces entered Beijing. Repaired in 1645, it was rebuilt in 1655 on the model of the Qingning Palace at Shengjing, and in 1798 its front eaves were restored after fire spread from the Qianqing Palace.

The name comes from the I Ching hexagram Kun and a line in the Daodejing meaning "the earth is at peace". After 1655 the hall became the main site of Qing shamanic sacrifice: daily morning and evening rites, spring and autumn great sacrifices, and the 23rd-day-of-the-twelfth-month kitchen god offering, held in the central rooms where pigs were boiled in three cauldrons. On New Year, the winter solstice and the empress's birthday, the empress rested here before receiving congratulations in the Hall of Union.

The hall is entered through its eastern second bay, not the central bay, since the 1655 Qing conversion; the double-leaf board door leads into the room with the three sacrificial cauldrons. The emperor's wedding chamber, the East Warm Chamber, lies beyond a red wooden screen with double-happiness characters. The hall sits on the raised 工-shaped terrace of the three rear palaces, reached from the Hall of Union; a sundial stands east and a grain measure west on the front platform.

The east chamber's north kang was the site of the emperor and empress's wedding-night rites; the 1959 restoration fitted it with a large red satin cover embroidered with dragons, phoenixes and double-happiness characters, found in storage and marked "East Warm Chamber, north kang". A red wooden screen with double-happiness characters stands inside the door.