Great Hall of the People

The Great Hall of the People is a state building on the west side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, used for the legislative and ceremonial functions of the Chinese state. Completed in September 1959 from a design by Zhao Dongri and Shen Qi, with Zhang Bo as chief architect, it hosts the annual sessions of the National People's Congress each March and the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party every five years. The building covers about 171,801 square meters, measures 356 meters long and 206.5 meters wide, and rises 46.5 meters at its center; it is arranged in three sections, a central block of auditoriums and halls, a northern block for banquets and guests, and a southern block of National People's Congress offices. Its Great Auditorium seats 10,000 people beneath a ceiling centered on a large red star amid a pattern suggesting waves, and its State Banquet Hall can seat 5,000 diners at once.