The Most Beautiful Temples in the People's Republic of China
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful temples in the People's Republic of China are Potala Palace, Temple of Heaven and Jokhang. The list covers 5 temples. Last updated 13 October 2026.
China's temples span several religions and very different landscapes. Imperial Beijing built altars to Heaven with exact cosmic symbolism, Tibetan Buddhism raised monasteries and palaces on the high plateau, and Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian builders cut shrines into cliffs and canyon walls. What unites them is a sense of placement: each site is set where mountain, water or sky gives it meaning.
The Potala Palace rises in tiers of white and red above Lhasa, the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas since the 17th century. Nearby, the Jokhang, founded in the 7th century, is the holiest temple of Tibetan Buddhism and the goal of pilgrims who circle it on the Barkhor. The Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where Ming and Qing emperors prayed for good harvests, is crowned by the round, triple-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The Hanging Temple clings to a cliff near Mount Heng in Shanxi, its halls propped on wooden beams and shared by Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Bingling Temple in Gansu is a set of Buddhist grottoes carved into the cliffs of the Yellow River gorge.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Potala Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 2 | Temple of Heaven | Temple | ✓ |
| 3 | Jokhang | Temple | ✓ |
| 4 | Hanging Temple (Xuankong Temple) | Temple | |
| 5 | Bingling Temple | Archaeological site | ✓ |
01 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 Structurally, it's built in the dzong style typical of Tibetan fortress-monasteries: massive tapering stone and rammed-earth walls, wood-framed interiors, and a stepped silhouette that reads less like a single building than a fortified hill town. At an altitude of roughly 3,700 metres, the complex spans about 400 metres east to west, with the White Palace rising seven storeys and the Red Palace thirteen — a scale that made it, for centuries, one of the tallest and largest structures anywhere on the Tibetan plateau, and the winter seat of successive Dalai Lamas for three hundred years.
Did you know? Two chapels in the northwest corner preserve parts of the earlier palace, including a cave revered as Songtsen Gampo's meditation cell.
02 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 Within Beijing, the temple lies in the south of Dongcheng district, south-east of Tiananmen Square and Qianmen, in an area of hutongs and low-rise streets that still has a neighbourhood feel.
Did you know? The dome of the Imperial Vault of Heaven stands without any crossbeams to hold it up.
03 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 best way to understand the temple is to join the kora, the clockwise walk around it along the Barkhor, which takes about 20 minutes. Pilgrims spin prayer wheels, count rosaries and sometimes measure out the route in full-length prostrations; early morning and dusk are the busiest times. Lhasa lies at about 3,650 m, so allow time to acclimatise before climbing stairs.
Did you know? The Jowo Shakyamuni is about 1.5 metres tall and portrays the Buddha at around the age of twelve, adorned with a jewelled crown.
04 Hanging Temple (Xuankong Temple)
People's Republic of China39.660° N 113.708° E
BRUNNER Emmanuel ( Manu25 ) · Public domain The Xuankong is unusual not only in its setting but in its faith. Its forty halls and pavilions serve three traditions at once, and in the Hall of the Three Religions the Buddha, Laozi and Confucius sit side by side, an expression of the late-imperial ideal that the three teachings are ultimately one. The rooms are tiny and the figures in them close enough to study in detail. Walking the galleries, with the gorge falling away beneath the railing, is a vertiginous experience; the temple can be admired just as well from the valley floor below.
Did you know? A drainage channel was cut into the rock directly above the temple to divert falling stones away from its roofs.
05 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 The site has borne several names. It was first called Tangshu Cave, from a Qiang word for "demon cave"; in the Tang it was the Longxing Temple and under the Song the Lingyan Temple. The present name dates from the Ming, and is usually explained as a shortened Tibetan expression meaning "ten thousand Buddhas", though some scholars trace it instead to an old place name of the region. In 2014 Bingling was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor.
Did you know? The famous inscription was found only in 1963, during a 50-day survey sponsored by the Gansu government that finally reached the high cave.
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 temples in the People's Republic of China?
- On our list, Potala Palace ranks first, followed by Temple of Heaven and Jokhang.
- Why is the Temple of Heaven round?
- In traditional Chinese cosmology heaven was round and the earth square. The circular halls and altars stand on square enclosures to express that idea.
- How does the Hanging Temple stay on the cliff?
- Its halls rest on wooden crossbeams fitted into holes cut into the rock face. The slender posts beneath them look like supports but carry little of the weight.
- What is the Jokhang?
- The Jokhang is a temple in Lhasa founded in the 7th century under King Songtsen Gampo. It houses the Jowo Shakyamuni statue and is regarded as the most sacred temple in Tibet.
- How many temples are on this list in the People's Republic of China?
- The list covers 5 temples.