The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in the People's Republic of China
15 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful sacred places in the People's Republic of China are Terracotta Army, Potala Palace and Temple of Heaven. The list covers 15 sacred places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
China's sacred places carry several traditions at once: Buddhism arriving along the Silk Road, Taoist and Confucian ritual, Tibetan monasticism on the high plateau, and imperial cults of heaven and ancestors. Timber construction with bracketed eaves shaped temples and even mosques, while cave shrines and brick pagodas show how Indian forms were remade in Chinese hands. The result is a sacred landscape where a tomb, a pagoda and a monastery can be equally monumental.
The Terracotta Army near Xi'an, buried with the First Emperor in the 3rd century BC and found by well-diggers in 1974, is a funerary army of thousands of individually modelled soldiers. In Beijing the Temple of Heaven, where Ming and Qing emperors prayed for good harvests, sets a round triple-roofed hall on a square terrace. The Great Mosque of Xi'an builds its courtyards and minaret in the form of a Chinese temple, without a single dome.
Pagodas show the craft at its most daring: the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda of 1056 is the oldest and tallest all-timber pagoda still standing, and the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple rise against the mountains above Dali. The Hanging Temple clings to a cliff on Mount Heng on wooden beams set into the rock. On the Tibetan plateau, the Potala Palace and the Jokhang in Lhasa, Labrang Monastery and the Kumbum stupa at Gyantse belong to a different world of whitewashed walls, gilded roofs and butter lamps.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terracotta Army | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 2 | Potala Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 3 | Temple of Heaven | Temple | ✓ |
| 4 | Great Mosque of Xi'an | Mosque | |
| 5 | Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple | Pagoda | |
| 6 | Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) | Pagoda | |
| 7 | Drepung Monastery | Monastery | |
| 8 | Jokhang | Temple | ✓ |
| 9 | Hanging Temple (Xuankong Temple) | Temple | |
| 10 | Western Xia Imperial Tombs | Necropolis | ✓ |
| 11 | Labrang Monastery | Monastery | |
| 12 | Palcho Monastery | Monastery | |
| 13 | Bingling Temple | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 14 | Larung Gar Buddhist Academy | Monastery | |
| 15 | Ganden Sumtseling Monastery | Monastery |
01 Terracotta Army
People's Republic of China · 24.5 km from Weinan34.385° N 109.273° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by artemtation from Pixabay What makes the find keep giving up new detail is that no two soldiers are alike. Heads were sculpted separately from the mass-produced bodies, which let craftsmen vary hairstyle, facial features, ear shape and expression figure by figure across a workforce of thousands — more than 8,000 figures are believed to exist in total, of which just over 2,000 have been excavated from three pits so far, leaving an estimated 6,000 still underground.
Did you know? Legs were built much like terracotta drainage pipes, and heads, arms and torsos were made separately before assembly.
02 Potala Palace
People's Republic of China · 2.2 km from Lhasa29.658° N 91.117° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nrxfly from Pixabay What stands today began in 1645 under the Fifth Dalai Lama, and the pace of the two halves of the project tells its own story. The White Palace — the residential and administrative wing — went up remarkably fast, its exterior finished in about three years.
Did you know? In 1966 the personal intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai spared the palace from damage during the Cultural Revolution.
03 Temple of Heaven
People's Republic of China · 2.4 km from Beijing39.882° N 116.407° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by ccxcn from Pixabay The plan works through a simple opposition: heaven is round, earth is square. The outer wall is curved at its northern end and squared off at the southern one, and the chief buildings are circular structures set in square courts. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the image everyone knows, a triple-roofed timber rotunda about 36 metres across and 38 metres high on three marble terraces, built without nails.
Did you know? Before the rites, the emperor left the Forbidden City with his whole retinue to camp inside the complex, wearing special robes and abstaining from meat.
04 Great Mosque of Xi'an
People's Republic of China · 4.3 km from Xi'an34.263° N 108.937° E
Zossolino · CC BY-SA 4.0 Tradition dates the mosque's foundation to around 742, when the Tang capital Chang'an, as Xi'an was then called, was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world, home to merchants and craftsmen from West Asia.
Did you know? The vast prayer hall is not a single building but three connected halls set one behind another.
05 Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple
People's Republic of China · 16.5 km from Dali25.708° N 100.146° E
Image by 多尼的棍仔糖 from Pixabay 6 metres high, among the tallest pagodas ever raised in China. It was built in the ninth century under the Nanzhao kings, and its closest relative is the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an — a sign that its builders looked to the Tang capital. Each storey carries tiers of upturned eaves and a niche with a white marble Buddha on every face.
Did you know? The Qianxun Pagoda is hollow inside, enclosed at its base by walls about 3.3 metres thick.
06 Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda)
People's Republic of China39.565° N 113.182° E
Charlie fong · CC BY-SA 4.0 31 metres on an octagonal plan, from a four-metre stone platform to a ten-metre spire. From outside it shows five storeys, each with its eaves and balcony, but hidden between them are four mezzanine levels, so that inside there are nine.
Did you know? Local records note seven earthquakes between 1056 and 1103, yet before the twentieth century the pagoda needed only about ten minor repairs.
More about Pagoda of Fogong Temple (Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) →
07 Drepung Monastery
People's Republic of China · 6.2 km from Lhasa29.677° N 91.047° E
Haogang0325 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Drepung became the largest of the three great Gelug monasteries of central Tibet, together with Sera and Ganden, and for centuries it was one of the biggest monastic institutions anywhere: a British visitor in the 1930s put its population at around 7,700 monks.
Did you know? The Tibetan government established by the 5th Dalai Lama took its name from Drepung's Ganden Phodrang.
08 Jokhang
People's Republic of China · 3.2 km from Lhasa29.653° N 91.132° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by VY from Pixabay The temple was enlarged many times over the following nine centuries, and the complex now combines a Gelug monastery with the original temple, rising four storeys under gilded roofs. It faces west onto Barkhor Square. Two stone pillars by the entrance carry an edict of 1794, part of which Tibetans have chiselled away in the belief that the stone itself heals.
Did you know? In 1049 the Indian master Atisha is said to have discovered a hidden text, the Pillar Testament, inside the temple.
09 Hanging Temple (Xuankong Temple)
People's Republic of China39.660° N 113.708° E
BRUNNER Emmanuel ( Manu25 ) · Public domain The temple's story begins in 491, under the Northern Wei dynasty, when a monk named Liaoran is credited with founding it; the halls have been repaired many times since, most recently in 2015–2016. The height was not only for effect. The river below was prone to flooding, and the overhang of the mountain above shelters the halls from rain and snow, which helps explain how a timber building has lasted so long on an exposed cliff.
Did you know? The present halls are largely Ming and Qing rebuildings; the temple was restored under the Jin, the Ming and again in the Tongzhi era of the Qing.
10 Western Xia Imperial Tombs
People's Republic of China · 25.1 km from Yinchuan38.435° N 105.987° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Thebrainchamber1 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The imperial mausoleums follow a common plan. A rectangular outer wall with paired gate towers on the south encloses stele pavilions, a barbican and an inner precinct with corner watchtowers. The tomb mound itself, made of rammed earth, stands off-centre in the north-west of the precinct and reaches up to 23 metres high and 30 metres across.
Did you know? Some bricks from a stele pavilion at Mausoleum 3 carry single Chinese characters, often surnames such as Li or Niu, evidence that Han craftsmen helped build the tombs.
11 Labrang Monastery
People's Republic of China35.194° N 102.505° E
No machine-readable author provided. Mrfish33~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY 2.5 Labrang was founded in 1709 by Ngawang Tsöndrü, the first Jamyang Zhépa, in the traditional Tibetan region of Amdo, where Tibetan and Mongol worlds meet. Its name derives from labrang, the word for a great lama's residence.
Did you know? The monastic year was divided into nine terms: four of a month, two of twenty days and three of fifteen days.
12 Palcho Monastery
People's Republic of China · 4.7 km from Gyantse28.924° N 89.595° E
Image by hbieser from Pixabay Gyantse grew into a princely seat in the 14th and 15th centuries under the overlordship of the Sakya school, and its rulers left three great monuments: the hilltop fortress, or dzong, the monastery assembly hall and the Kumbum.
Did you know? Before 1959 the monastery housed about 1,500 monks.
13 Bingling Temple
People's Republic of China · 26.8 km from Linxia City35.806° N 103.044° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Thebrainchamber1 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Work here began in the early 5th century under the Western Qin dynasty. Cave 169 preserves an ink inscription dated to 420 CE, the earliest dated record at the site. Carving went on for more than a thousand years, through the Northern Wei, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and each period left work in its own recognisable style.
Did you know? Only the upper half of the great Maitreya Buddha is carved from the living rock; its lower half was built up from a mud-based mixture.
14 Larung Gar Buddhist Academy
People's Republic of China32.153° N 100.469° E
Image by 龚 from Pixabay The academy was founded in 1980 by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, a lama of the Nyingma school who began with a small retreat in the empty valley. Teaching drew students from across the Tibetan regions and beyond, and by the late 1990s reports counted some 10,000 residents — about 4,500 nuns, 4,000 monks and nearly a thousand Han Chinese students.
Did you know? Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was recognised at the age of five as the reincarnation of Tertön Sogyal, a tantric visionary from Nyarong in eastern Tibet.
15 Ganden Sumtseling Monastery
People's Republic of China27.864° N 99.704° E
瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The monastery belongs to the Gelug school, and its foundation is tied to the troubled years of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories. After Mongol and Tibetan forces sent by the Fifth Dalai Lama took control of the Zhongdian area in the 1670s, a series of Gelug monasteries were founded there.
Did you know? The two principal college buildings of the monastery are known in Chinese as Zhacang and Jikang.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful sacred places in the People's Republic of China?
- On our list, Terracotta Army ranks first, followed by Potala Palace and Temple of Heaven.
- Why was the Terracotta Army made?
- It was buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, who died in 210 BC, to serve and guard him in the afterlife. Each soldier's face and dress were modelled individually.
- What is the oldest wooden pagoda in China?
- The Pagoda of Fogong Temple in Ying County, Shanxi, built in 1056, is the oldest fully wooden pagoda in China and, at about 67 metres, the tallest wooden one in the world.
- How does the Hanging Temple stay on the cliff?
- Its halls rest on crossbeams of oak fitted into holes cut in the rock face, with the cliff above sheltering them from rain. It is unusual too for honouring Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism together.
- How many sacred places are on this list in the People's Republic of China?
- The list covers 15 sacred places.