The Heijo Palace site is the excavated remains of the imperial palace compound that served as the seat of Japanese government from 710 to 784. The original palace covered an area of roughly one square kilometre and contained the emperor's residence, state halls, government offices, and gardens. Today most of the site is open parkland with reconstructed structures — the Daigoku-den (Great Audience Hall) and the East Palace Garden — showing what the original complex looked like.
The site is a UNESCO World Heritage property and one of the more affecting places in Nara because of its sheer scale and emptiness. Walking the grounds makes tangible how enormous the imperial project was in the eighth century. The adjacent Nara Palace Site Museum displays excavated objects and explains the history of the capital's brief existence. The site is about two kilometres west of the park area; buses run from the city centre.