Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PRACTICALITIES
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Tiāntán Gōngyuán
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6701 2483
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address: Tiantan Donglu
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admission park/through ticket (for all sights) high season ¥15/35, low season ¥10/30, audio tour ¥40 (deposit
¥100)
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park 6am-9pm; sights 8am-6pm Apr-Oct, 8am-5pm Nov-Mar
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Tiantandongmen
This is not so much a temple as an altar, so don't expect to see worshippers in prayer.
Temple of Heaven is essentially Confucian in function and its cosmic overtones will de-
light numerologists, necromancers and superstitious visitors - not to mention acoustic en-
gineers and carpenters. Seen from above the structures are round and the bases square, a
pattern deriving from the ancient Chinese belief that heaven is round and earth is square.
Thus the northern end of the park is semicircular and the southern end is square. Temple
of the Earth, also called Dìtán, in the north of Běijīng, is on the northern compass point
and Temple of Heaven is on the southern point.
There are four gates to the park, one on each point of the compass, and you can enter
through any of them. The imperial approach to the temple was via
Zhāohēng Gate
OFFLINE
cipal sights below. You can enter either with just the basic park ticket (¥15), then buy a
¥20 ticket that includes each major sight later, or buy the through ticket (¥35), which gets
you into the park and all the sights.
Round Altar
rebuilt in 1740. The altar once looked very different: its first incarnation was in deep-blue
glazed stone before being redone in light green. The current white marble structure is ar-
rayed in three tiers; its geometry revolves around the imperial number nine. Odd numbers
were considered heavenly, and nine is the largest single-digit odd number. The top tier,
thought to symbolise heaven, contains nine rings of stones. Each ring has multiples of
nine stones, so that the ninth ring has 81 stones. The middle tier (earth) has the 10th to
