Datong Ancient City & Hanging Temple

Datong Ancient City • History: With a history of over 2,200 years, dating back to the Qin and Han dynasties, it served as the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the secondary capital of the Liao and Jin dynasties, and a major town during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The existing city walls were mainly built in the fifth year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty by Xu Da, based on the old earthen walls. • Architectural Features: The city has a square shape, 1.8 km long from east to west and 1.82 km long from north to south, with a circumference of 7.24 km and an area of about 3.45 sq km. The city walls are 14m high, 12m wide at the top, and 18m wide at the bottom. They are built with stone strips, slabs, and blocks as the foundation, rammed with "three-in-one earth," and covered with green bricks. There are four main city gates, as well as military facilities such as a moat, drawbridge, and arrow towers. • Restoration and Protection: In 2008, Datong City made a decision to implement a large-scale protection, restoration, and environmental improvement project from 2009 to 2016, which basically formed the current layout of the ancient city. • Cultural Value: Datong City ranks third among the 24 national historical and cultural cities and is the ninth largest ancient capital of China. Within the ancient city, there are four national key cultural relic protection units, two provincial-level units, and 18 municipal-level units, with a total of 109 immovable cultural relics. Hanging Temple • Overview: Located on the cliffs of Cuiping Peak, west of the main peak of Hengshan Mountain in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi Province, it is a temple integrating Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. It was first built in the fifteenth year of the Taihe reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty, over 1,500 years ago. The existing buildings were mainly constructed during the Ming and Qing dynasties. • Architectural Structure: It adopts a wooden frame structure. The Three Religions Hall is the highest point, originally 90m above the ground, now only 58m. It uses half-inserted beams as the base, supported by hidden rocks, and applies mechanical principles to maintain stability. It has a unique form of grottoes connected to the temple halls, with half of the building being halls and the other half being grottoes. • Layout Features: Facing east towards Hengshan Mountain, it consists of the Buddha Hall Courtyard, South Tower, North Tower, Hanging Plank Road, and the platform in front of the temple. The overall structure gradually rises from south to north along the mountain, forming a multi-layered horizontal layout, breaking the traditional symmetrical layout of temples. • Cultural Value: It was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit in 1982, rated as a national AAAA-level tourist attraction in 2002, and selected as one of the "World's 10 Most Precarious Buildings" by Time magazine in 2010. It was praised as a "wonder of the world" by Xu Xiake.