Chinese imperial Sites

Chinese imperial sites are held apart from the Chinese state religion grouping because their sanctity rests on the imperial office and cosmology itself, the emperor as the Son of Heaven and the seat from which he ruled, rather than on the mountain and temple cult of state sacrifice tracked separately. The Forbidden City is the entry here, sacred as the physical center of that claim to rule rather than as a site of ritual sacrifice in its own right. A site used for state sacrifice without that imperial residency belongs in the state religion grouping instead.