The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles, France.

In French, it's not known as the Château de Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today,however, it is a suburb of Paris. From 1682, when King Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in 1789, the Court of Versailles was the centre of power in Ancien Régime France. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy which Louis XIV espoused.