Surrounding the Palace City, the Imperial City harbored different civic institutions, temples and monasteries. We can see that it was developed by following the principles of Feng Shui, and historians have described it as a cauldron of cultural fusion of Mongolian and Han Chinese cultures. The place is in ruins, and what remains can only hint at the luxury of the living Xanadu.

In recent years Polo’s accounts have been thrown into serious doubt, and much of his narrative may have been fictional, but it seems that (at least in the basics) he was right about this.īut absent Marco Polo’s description (and leaving Coleridge’s drug-fuelled flight of fancy aside) much of what Xanadu actually was has been lost. The popularity of Xanadu has been attributed in large part to the accounts of Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer. The city has palaces, waterways and gardens, laid out in a pleasing fashion but markedly different from other population centers: this was to be a place of surpassing beauty. One of the most interesting aspects of the real Xanadu was the difference from traditional Mongol architecture. Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis and founder of Xanadu (Araniko / Public Domain )