Abstract:Chinese ancient imperial gardens have an original and deep understanding about time and space. Based on documents and extant cases, the paper researches the concept of space in Chinese ancient imperial gardens from cosmological models, orientation, simulations and imagination of Chinese geographical circumstance, and studies the concept of time in Chinese ancient imperial gardens from division of time, direction of time, time sequence, and time speed. Then the paper investigates the relationship between time and space from the way of corresponding, interleaving and associated moving. On this basis, the paper discusses the origin of the concept from view of the world, the nature and life. It is believed that most of the other ancient gardens have the similar origins, therefore the conclusion is generally applicable.