The Chinese word for "palace" is gong which, however, may refer to any of several different things.

In the earliest Chinese writings it meant no more than an ordinary house. After the founding of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.), gong came gradually to mean the group of buildings in which the emperor lived and worked. From about the same time, the Chinese palace grew ever larger in scale. Like the Epanggong of the First Emperor of Qin, the Weiyanggong of the Western Han Dynasty, The Forbidden City of Beijing, the gong grew into a veritable city and is often called gongchen (palace city).

Apart from the palace, other abodes of the emperor are also called gong. So, the Yiheyuan Park used to be the Summer Palace; the Mountain Resort at Chengde and the Huaqingchi thermal spa near Xi'an were both xinggong or "palace-on-tour". Then there is another type of gong called zhaigong, where the emperor prepared himself with ablution and abstinence before he offered sacrifice at a grand ceremony. There is one such zhaigong on the grounds of Beijing's Temple of Heaven.

Inside a great gong, certain individual buildings may also be called gong. The Qing emperors used to live at Qianqinggong in the Forbidden City, whereas the living quarters of the empresses were at Kunninggong.

The name gong is also used for religious buildings of great dimensions. The Potala in Lhasa is a gong to the Chinese; the lama temple of Beijing is Yonghegong. The temples of Taoist priests are generally called Sanqinggong (palace of triple purity).