BEIJING, Aug. 27 -- China's 600-year-old Forbidden City is renovating its website in a move to improve its offerings of Chinese culture, said the information chief of the Palace Museum Wednesday.

    The new website will launch during the National Day Festival in early October, said Hu Chui, head of the museum's information department.

    "It will give visitors richer and easier access to the imperial city, and the ancient building complex with as many as 8,707 rooms and 1.5 million artistic articles," said Hu, who is leading a team of 60 to boost the museum's digital display.

    The Forbidden City is the world's largest surviving imperial palace complex and served as the home of the emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government, from 1420 to the early 20th century.

    The new website is restructured to meet the different demands of laymen, researchers and academics, Hu said.

    The site will include quiz games, suitable for children, that teach basic knowledge about ancient China. The museum has created a cartoon figure as its image ambassador, a young emperor clad in a bright yellow royal robe adapted from Emperor Kangxi, one of the most famous emperors of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

    Older visitors can expect tens of thousands of pictures in refined quality with explanatory introductions. And researchers can have access to the museum's academic research findings in a database.

    "VIRTUAL WORLD" STAGES

    The new website is part of the imperial palace-turned museum's effort to move into the virtual world.

    Hu's team is producing seven 3-D documentaries, each a 20- to 30-minute film mixed with real photographs or archival footage, and special effects produced by computer.

    A yet-to-open 3-D cinema is in the southwestern corner hall in the yard of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, with black walls and red chairs.

    Xu Ying, director of the museum's exhibition technology section, said the cinema is built of a removable steel structure that minimizes possible damage to the ancient wood architecture of the hall.

   "We are recruiting management staff now. Our top problem is to ensure the safety of the palace hall when the audience crowds in," she said.