Beijing’s best temples and shrines

This Buddhist temple complex enjoys a sublime hillside setting at the Fragrant Hills. The Diamond Throne Pagoda at the rear is a magnificent showpiece, while the unusual Hall of Arhats contains 500 near life-size sculptures of Buddhist disciples.

Built to honour a corrupt and powerful eunuch, this is Beijing’s best-preserved Ming dynasty temple. The walls of the remarkable Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall are filled from floor to ceiling with tiny niches, each housing an effigy of Buddha.

Islam came to China around the tenth century AD; this mosque is Beijing’s oldest, dating to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). Architecturally it resembles a traditional Chinese temple, but for that fact that it faces west rather than the customary south.

One of Beijing’s most spectacular historic sights, the Lama Temple started out as a grand imperial residence before being converted to a lamasery for Tibetan Buddhists in 1744.

During the Qing Dynasty, it became one of the most important religious sites in China, tasked with determining the reincarnations of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

The palace-like site unfolds symmetrically through a series of ornamental halls, courtyards and pavilions to its incense-shrouded finale, an 18m tall statue of the Maitreya Buddha carved from a single trunk of Tibetan sandalwood.

Carved tortoise-like beasts heave enormous stone slabs on their backs at this grand temple complex honouring China’s foremost spiritual thinker, the great sage Confucius. The attached Guozijian (Imperial College) is where scholars of old studied for their civil service exams.

An India-inspired temple along the once-royal waterway between the capital and the Summer Palace, the Wuta (Five Pagodas) is a remarkable piece of architecture. The temple grounds are also home to a fascinating museum of ancient Chinese stonemasonry.

Dating back to the reign of Kublai Khan, this peaceful Buddhist temple is crowned with an urn-shaped, 51-metre tall dagoba that soars photogenically over the surrounding hutong neighbourhood, one of the city’s best for strolling.

This maze of halls and shrines is still tended by Taoist monks. Its 19 separate chambers are each dedicated to a particular deity, such as the God of Wealth, or the Jade Emperor.

The Temple of Heaven is unlike any other temple in China. In fact, it’s not really a temple at all but a richly symbolic event space of sorts, where the emperor, accompanied by a grand entourage, would perform arcane rites twice a year to pray for heaven’s blessing.

Ceremonies took place upon the open-air Round Altar, next to the Imperial Vault of Heaven where the spirit tablets of the gods were kept. A 360m-long paved walkway connects to the splendid centrepiece, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

Surrounded by sculpted parkland, the layout of the complex was designed to reflect Chinese cosmology and symbolise the relationship between heaven and earth.