Forbidden City widens its reach to the public

Four new areas of the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, will be opened to the public for the first time on Saturday since the museum was founded 90 years ago.

They are part of the Cining Palace built mainly for emperors' mothers and concubines, the Baoyun Building, a warehouse built in 1914 to store thousands of treasures, and wings of the Meridian Gate and East Prosperity Gate.

This increases the areas of the Forbidden City open to the public to 65 percent from 52 percent. The palace, which used to be home to emperors' families, is about twice the size of the Louvre in Paris.