The palace survived until the Tang dynasty when it was burned down by marauding invaders en route to the Tang capital Chang'an. This was the largest palace ever built on Earth,[1] covering 4.8 km2 (1,200 acres), which is 6.7 times the size of the current Forbidden City, or 11 times the size of the Vatican City.[2] Today, little remains of the former palace. The site of the palace, along with many other sites along the eastern section of the Silk Road, was named a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2014.
Name
"Weiyang" (未央) literally means "(something) hasn't reached its midpoint", "has more than a half to go", but colloquially it can be translated as "endless", which is probably what the name is actually alluding to. Together with the name of Changle Palace (長樂宮, perpetual happiness), which was built 2 years before, it can be interpreted to mean, "The perpetual happiness hasn't reached its midpoint yet."
Description
Weiyang palace was sited to the southwest of Han dynasty Chang'an and is therefore also called the Western Palace (西宫). Surrounded by walls, the palace complex was rectangular, with a length of 2,150 metres east–west and 2,250 metres north–south. Each side of the walls had a single main gate, with the eastern and northern gates (facing Chang'an city) built with gate towers.