First Forecast in January: Forbidden City Now Limits Visitors to 80,000 Per Day

I had to look this up to prove to myself that I'm not insane, but yes, we wrote about the Forbidden City limiting visitors to 80,000 per day in January. And we wrote about it because China Daily had mentioned it. Apparently, the pilot program began on Saturday.

A maximum of 80,000 non-emperors will be allowed to pass through the gates beginning later this year. In addition to being the world's largest palace complex, the Forbidden City, more accurately known as the Palace Museum, is also the world's most popular museum, welcoming over 15 million visitors in 2014. The Louvre in Paris was a distant second, with 9.2 million.

Peak days have seen as many as 140,000 visitors at the museum, the report said. Perhaps most interesting, As few as 29,000 visitors per day go during the low season of November 1 to March 31 – shocking to consider that visiting somewhere with enough people to fill a small football stadium is considered being almost alone.

The Forbidden City has lived up to its name since April 1, with a ban on "microphones with electronic amplifiers" starting from then. Hooray! That will make it much easier for English-speaking tourists to hear Sir Roger Moore clearly on the audio tour.

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