Prospect Hill (Jingshan) is situated north of the Palace Museum

Jingshan	Jingshan

Prospect Hill (Jingshan) is situated just north of the Palace Museum. From the Yuan Dynasty onwards, this area was a "forbidden garden." Opened to the public in 1928, it formally became a park after 1949.
Prospect Hill was built up from mud dredged from the surrounding lakes and moats at the time of the construction of the Yuan capital Dadu. Inside the North Upper Gate stands the Beautiful View Pavilion (Qiwanglou). In the past, memorial tablets used by the imperial family in their consecration of Confucius were stored here. It now serves as a hall for cultural exhibitions.
The hill has five peaks, each decked with a pavilion constructed in 1751 by order Qianlong. The pavilion on the central peak is called the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Spring times. To the east are the pavilion of Admiring the Surroundings and the Pavilion of Gazing at Excellence, and to the west the Pavilion of Rich View and the Pavilion of Accumulated Fragrance. The pavilions once held a bronze Buddha each (collectively known as the "Five Flavored Immortals"), but four of them were removed by the troops pf the Eight-Power Allied Forces in 1900, while the fifth, that in the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Spring times, lost its left arm. But the arm was restored later. On the eastern pathway leading down the Prospect Hill there once stood a diminutive scholar tree, which was surrounded by a red brick wall. It was here that the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hung himself on the morning of March 19, 1644. On the north slope of the hill are the Hall of Longevity of the Emperors (Shouhuangdian) and the Hall for Observing Morals (Guandetang).