If you’ve ever walked through a Chinese garden and felt like you’d stepped into a painting, the Summer Palace will make you wonder if the painting was the thing that came first. Set against the foothills of the Fragrant Hills and stretching around the shores of Kunming Lake, the Summer Palace (颐和园, Yíhéyuán) is less a garden than a philosophy made physical — a place where nature, architecture, and imperial ambition are woven into something that feels both inevitable and miraculous.

The Summer Palace as we know it today is largely the creation of one woman: Empress Dowager Cixi, who rebuilt and expanded it in the late 19th century as a personal retreat and a demonstration of Qing dynasty power. But the story of this place goes back further, to the emperors who first saw in these hills and lake a rare opportunity to shape nature rather than merely inhabit it.