The history of the place dates back to 600 years ago, and the site was the mansion of Prince of Han during the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty it became the office of the Vieeroy of Jiangnan and Jiangxi.

In March 1853,the Taiiping peasant army conquered Nanjing and established their regime known as "The Kingdom of Heavenly Peace" Hong xiuquan, the Heavenly King of the regime, claimed the former palace and ordered it enlarged.

In 1864, Zeng guofan, the military commander of the Qing Empire, attacked and cracked down the Taiping army. In 1912, Dr. Sun Yat-sen was elected the Provincional President of the Republic, and changed the west garden of the palace into the Presidential Residence. In 1928, the palace became the administration office of the republic government.

There were two wings in the Presidential Palace. The Executive Yuan(Council) of the Nationalist Government was located in the East Wing and its main military authorities in the West Wing.Opposite the archway is a screen wall, inside which there is a memorial tablet of the hundredth anniversary of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Behind the archway is a house of 17 bays on either side.

Then it is the palace of 5 bays, each with a width of 35.2 meters and a depth of 13.4 meters. Before the palace is a house with a width of 26 metres and a depth of 4.6 meters. In front of the house is a platform with a width of 26 meters and a depth of 10 meters.

The side walls of the platform are built with limestone and lined with city wall bricks of the Ming Dynasty glued together with yellow clay and lime. Behind the palace are the hallway and the room for keeping warm. On the sides of the hallway are three rows of halls in an I shape.

On the west of the axis of the palace is the architectural group of the West Garden built on the basis of Xiyuan Garden in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. In the garden there exist a pool shaped like a vase, a marble boat, a waterside pavilion, the Banting Pavilion, the Yilan Pavilion, the Mandarin Pavilion, and so on.