Forbidden City to Limit Daily Visitors, Ban Megaphones (Yeah!)

The Palace Museum, aka the Forbidden City, will begin limiting the number of daily visitors in an effort to reduce the impact of tourists on the site, China Daily reported Wednesday.

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 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. Visit the Forbidden City today! Shocking when going somewhere with enough people to fill a small football stadium is considered being almost alone. Winter prices are also going down -- tickets will be only RMB 20 during the low season.

The Forbidden City will live up to its name beginning 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 Roger Moore clearly on the audio tour.

Photo: Wikimedia