The Summer Palace is the largest and best-preserved imperial garden in China, and one of the four famous gardens in China (the other three are Chengde Mountain Resort, Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden, and Suzhou Lingering Garden). It is located in Haidian District, Beijing, 15 kilometers away from the urban area of Beijing, and covers an area of about 290 hectares. It is a large natural landscape garden built on the site of Kunming Lake and Wanshou Mountain, based on the scenery of West Lake in Hangzhou, and absorbing some design techniques and artistic conception of Jiangnan gardens. It is also the best-preserved imperial palace and imperial garden, and is known as the Royal Garden Museum. The Summer Palace was originally the imperial palace and garden of the Qing Dynasty. Its predecessor was the Qingyi Garden. It was the last garden built among the Three Hills and Five Gardens (the Three Hills refer to the Longevity Hill, the Fragrant Hill and the Jade Spring Hill. The three hills have the Qingyi Garden, the Jingyi Garden and the Jingming Garden respectively. In addition, there are the nearby Changchun Garden and the Yuanming Garden, collectively known as the Five Gardens). Construction began in 1750 and was completed in 1764. It covers an area of 290 hectares, of which about three quarters are covered by water. Before Emperor Qianlong ascended the throne, four large royal gardens had been built in the western suburbs of Beijing. The four gardens from Haidian to Xiangshan formed their own system and lacked organic connections with each other. The "Wengshan Lake" in the middle became an empty area. In the 15th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1750), Emperor Qianlong used 4.48 million taels of silver to rebuild the Qingyi Garden here to honor his mother, Empress Xiaosheng. With this as the center, the four gardens on both sides were connected into one, forming a 20-kilometer-long royal garden area from the current Tsinghua Garden to Xiangshan. In the 10th year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign (1860), the Qingyi Garden was burned down by the British and French allied forces. In the 14th year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1888), Empress Dowager Cixi used silver (according to experts, it should be 5 to 6 million taels of silver) in the name of raising naval funds. Lei Tingchang, the seventh-generation descendant of Yangshi Lei, presided over the reconstruction and renamed it the Summer Palace as a summer resort. In the 26th year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1900), the Summer Palace was destroyed by the "Eight-Nation Alliance" and many treasures were looted. It was restored in the 29th year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1903). Later, during the warlords' melee and the Kuomintang's rule, it was destroyed again. After 1949, the government continued to allocate funds for repairs. On March 4, 1961, the Summer Palace was announced as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. In November 1998, it was included in the World Heritage List. On May 8, 2007, the Summer Palace was officially approved by the National Tourism Administration as a national 5A tourist attraction. In 2009, the Summer Palace was selected by the China World Records Association as the largest existing royal garden in China. The Summer Palace has many world records and China records.