Beijing - Sights and attractions

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Beijing is the political, educational and cultural centre of the country and as such it is rich in historical sites and important government and cultural institutions. Beijing's climate is a monsoon influenced continental climate with hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters. The best time to visit is in September and October, the "Golden Autumn".

Top 10 things to do in Beijing!

Here you'll find various famous landmarks and attractions of Beijing. You can find all kind of interesting facts and information about some of the city's most remarkable landmarks.

Yonghe Gong (Lama Temple)

The Yonghe Temple is a complex of progressively larger buildings topped with ornate yellow-tiled roofs, Yonghe Gong was built in 1694 and originally belonged to the Qing prince who would become the Yongzheng emperor. The entire temple is decorated with Buddha images—all guarded by somber lamas (monks) dressed in brown robes. The Yonghe Temple is arranged along a north-south central axis, which has a length of 480m. The main gate is at the southern end of this axis.

White Cloud Temple (Baiyun guan)

White Cloud Temple is a huge and fascinating temple complex of shrines and courtyards, tended by distinctive Daoist monks with their hair long and tied in a bun at the top of the head. The White Cloud Temple was first founded in the mid-8th century during the Tang Dynasty, and was initially called Tianchang Abbey (Abbey of Celestial Perpetuity). Out of twenty Quanzhen ordination centers in Qing times, Baiyun guan was the most important. In order to become a Daoist priest, novices first had to spend three years living in a temple. After accomplishing this, they were eligible to be ordinated. The ordination was a extremely harsh.

Forbidden City

The Forbidden City receives more visitors than any other attraction in the country (over seven million a year, the government says), and has been praised in Western travel literature ever since the first Europeans laid eyes on it in the late 1500s. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. Opening hours are irregular and no photos are allowed without prior permission.

Beijing Huanle Gu (Happy Valley Amusement Park)

The park, which is located in the east of Beijing, is one of four chained theme parks with the other three Happy Valley theme parks located in the city of Chengdu, Shanghai. Similar in style with the Disneyland Park, Happy Valley Beijing also featured distinctive landscapes and themes throughout the resort along with featured rides within the different themes. Lines for rides can be 3 hours long, so arrive early and avoid the weekends.

Bei Hai Gongyuan (Beihai Park)

The Beihai Park, as with many of Chinese imperial gardens, was built to imitate renowned scenic spots and architecture from various regions of China. Entering from the south, you come to Tuan Cheng (Round City), a small citadel on a raised platform whose most notable structure, Chengguang Dian, houses a 1.5m-tall (5-ft.) statue of a feminine-looking Buddha, crafted from Burmese white jade. The structures and scenes in the Beihai Park are described as masterpieces of gardening technique that reflects the style and the superb architectural skill and richness of traditional Chinese garden art.

The Great Wall at Badaling

China’s best-known attraction is still mind-boggling. The Great Wall begins at Shanhai Guan on the Bo Hai Sea and snakes west to a fort at Jiayu Guan in the Gobi Desert. The wall at Badaling has undergone heavy restoration, and in 1957 it was the first section of the wall to open to tourists. Now visited annually by millions, the immediate area has seen significant development, including hotels, restaurants, and a cable car. By car from downtown Beijing it’s only one hour. Read more...

The Capital Museum

Exhibitions on Chinese courtyard architecture and Buddhist sculpture are some of the highlights of the Capital Museum. It opened in 1981 while the present building was built in the late 90s and it houses a variety of items from imperial China as well as other Asian cultures. The Capital Museum today contains over 200,000 cultural relics in its collection.

Tiananmen Square

The world's largest public square, the size of 90 American football fields (40 hectares/99 acres), with standing room for 300,000 people. Tiananmen Square owes little to grand imperial designs and everything to Mao Zedong. It is surrounded by the Forbidden City in the north, the Great Hall of the People in the west, and the museums of Chinese History and Chinese Revolution in the east. Standing in the Square is an experience hard to describe.

The Underground City

The Underground City, also known as Dixia Cheng, is a bomb shelter comprising a network of tunnels located beneath Beijing, China, which has since been transformed into a tourist attraction. It has been called the Underground Great Wall because it was built for the purpose of military defense. There are roughly 90 entrances to the complex, all of which are hidden in shops along Qianmen's main streets. You can visit a section of the tunnels and, although there's not much to see, you'll pass chambers labelled their original function (cinema, hospital, arsenal etc) as well as flood-proof gates.

Temple of Confucius

The Temple of Confucius at Beijing is the second largest Confucian Temple in China after the one in Confucius' hometown of Qufu. It was built in 1302, and imperial officials used it to pay their respects to Confucius until 1911. The Great Accomplishment Hall in the temple houses Confucius's funeral tablet and shrine, flanked by copper-color statues depicting China's wisest Confucian scholars.