Atlas of China
Ayuwang Pagoda 阿育王塔Āyùwáng Tǎ
National heritage site · Xinzhou, Shanxi
- Time needed
- 30 minutes
- Days to budget
- Half a day
- City
- Xinzhou
- Region
- Shanxi
- Type
- Heritage
- Listed as
- National heritage site
About Ayuwang Pagoda
A bottle-shaped brick stupa of about 40 m in the Tibetan Buddhist style, built in 1275 on a round base carved with lotus petals and topped by thirteen rings and a copper gourd-shaped finial. It replaced earlier pagodas on the site, the first a Sui-dynasty timber tower of 601. The architects Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin visited in 1937 and praised its proportions as the best of the surviving bottle-shaped pagodas.
How to get to Ayuwang Pagoda
On East Street in the old town of Daixian, the seat of Dai County, about 75 km north of Xinzhou.
Nearby
- Yanmen Pass 雁门关 20 km
A Ming fortress gate on the Inner Great Wall, its ramparts running up the mountain ridges - Foguang Temple 佛光寺 40 km
A Tang timber hall of 857 on a quiet hillside, still filled with its Tang clay statues - Mount Wutai 五台山 60 km
Temples, a towering white stupa and yellow-tiled roofs below five flat-topped holy peaks - Yingxian Wooden Pagoda 应县木塔 60 km
A Liao-dynasty timber pagoda of 1056, five storeys outside and nine within
Also within 20 km: Bianjing Drum Tower 边靖楼 (under 10 km), Daixian Confucian Temple 代县文庙 (under 10 km), Daizhou Ancient City 代州古城 (under 10 km).
On the map
Open Ayuwang Pagoda on the illustrated map to see the terrain around it and what else is close, and to add it to a trip.
Open Ayuwang Pagoda on the map