Kunming Lake: the central lake on the grounds of the Summer Palace. Together with the Longevity Hill, Kunming Lake forms the key landscape features of the Summer Palace gardens.

With an area of 2.2 square kilometres (0.8 sq mi), Kunming Lake covers approximately three quarters of the Summer Palace grounds. It is quite shallow, with an average depth of only 1.5 metres (5 ft). Kunming Lake is a man-made lake. The conversion of the area into an imperial garden was commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor with the work being carried out between 1750 and 1764. In the course of creating the gardens, the lake area was extended by a workforce of almost 10,000 laborers.

"The Marble Boat is a lakeside pavilion on the grounds of the Summer Palace. It was first erected in 1755 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. The original pavilion was made from a base of large stone blocks which supported a wooden superstructure done in a traditional Chinese design.

"In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the pavilion was destroyed by Anglo-French forces. It was restored in 1893 on order of the Empress Dowager Cixi. In this restoration, a new two-story superstructure was designed which incorporated elements of European architecture. Like its predecessor, the new superstructure is made out of wood but it was painted to imitate marble."  - Wikipedia (online Jan. 2014)