The Little Wild Goose Pagoda

The Little Wild Goose Pagoda is located in the Jianfu Temple in the southern suburb of Xian City, about 2 kilometers to the south of the City Wall.

 The pagoda gets its name because it is smaller than the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, although it is more stories high and more important in the architecture history. It was completed in 709 A.D., when Buddhism was firmly established in China. It was built to store the sutras and the figurines of Buddha, which were brought back from India by a famous Buddhist monk named Yijing.

Reaching 43.38 meters (142 feet) high, this multi-eave brick pagoda is thirteen stories tall. It is square on plane and rises skyward in an elegant spindle shape. Above the ground floor, the height of each storey diminishes, rendering a graceful curve to the contour.

The Drum Tower

Built during the Ming dynasty (1380 A.D.), the Drum Tower is located to the north of West Street. It is a very solemn and magnificent classical building within Xian city. Drum Tower and Bell Tower are regarded as "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum".

Its blue brick foundation covers an area of 18,043 square meters. The wooden tower itself has two stories with three layers of eaves, and each story has seven rooms and a green glazed tile roof. Originally, above the southern eave there was a plaque with the inscription, "Splendid Civil and Military Place" in big letters, and above the northern eave there was a plaque inscribed Sound Can Be Heard in the Sky in gold letters

Xian Ancient City Wall

Xian Ancient City Wall is the most complete city wall survived in China as well as one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world.

The wall was built in the Tang dynasty (618AD-907AD) and enlarged in the Ming dynasty (1368AD-1644AD). The construction of the Xian City was formally started in the seventh year of Emperor Hongwu reign (1374AD) and completed in the eleventh year of Hongwu reign (1378AD).

After its completion, the circumference of the city wall was 13.75 kilometers long in an oblong shape. Its height is 12 meters; its top is 12-14 meters wide and its base is 15-18 meters wide.

The military defense facilities here include the city wall, city moat, drawbridges, watchtowers, corner towers, parapet walls and gate towers once made up a complete city defense system.

The city wall includes four gates and they are respectively named as Changle in the east, Anding in the west, Yongning in the south and Anyuan in the north. The most beautifully decorated gate, the south gate Yongning, is very near to the Bell Tower in the center of the city. Each city gate has three gate towers: Zhenglou, Jianlou and Zhalou. The most outside is Zhalou, which stands away from the City Wall and is opposite to Zhenglou. It was used to raise and lower the suspension bridge. Jianlou with small windows in the front and flanks was used as a defensive outpost. Zhenglou, in the inner, is the main entrance to the city. The wall connects Jianlou and Zhenglou Towers. The area between them within the wall was called "Wong Cheng", in which the soldiers stationed. From Wong Cheng, there are sloped horse passages leading to the top of the city wall.   

Huaqing Hot Springs

Huaqing Hot Springs are located 35 kilometers east of Xian city at the foot of the Lishan Mountain in a large park where there are a number of public baths and some modern palaces built in the Tang style.

 The hot springs, rich in minerals, were highly regarded more than 3000 years ago. The Tang Emperor Xuanzong often spent the winter here in the company of his favorite concubine, Yang Guifei. Shortly afterwards, however, all the buildings were destroyed by war.

  The entering gate bears the inscription Huaqing Chi´ by Guo Moruo, a noted litterateur in China. There are numerous classical style buildings at the site and many frescoes decorate the walls here. As the story of Yang Guifei, a concubine, is very popular with the Chinese.

 The new baths constructed in 1956 include one called the Bath of Yang Guifei.

Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses

Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses are around 1.5 kilometers east of Emperor Qin Shi Huang´s Mausoleum, Lintong County, Shaanxi Province.

Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of all China, begun to work for his mausoleum. It took 11 years to finish. It is speculated that many buried treasures and sacrificial objects had accompanied the emperor in his after life.

The museum covers an area of 16,300 square meters, divided into three sections No. 1 Pit, No. 2 Pit, and No. 3 Pit respectively. The largest Pit(Pit 1) is the most imposing. Some 6000 warriors and horses stand here in rectangular battle array, facing east. The vanguard of three rows of archers(both crossbow and longbow) is followed by the main force of soldiers, who originally held spears, swords, dagger-axes and other long-shaft weapons.

The Famen Temple

Situated some 118 kilometers (73 miles) west of Xian, the Famen Temple will appeal to travelers who are journeying west to explore the ancient Silk Road. The temple gained the name Famen (which means the initial approach to become a Buddhist believer) in the Tang dynasty when a wooden four-storey structure was built replacing the original Ashoka Stupa built in the Eastern Han dynasty.

The temple with the "the Real Spirit Pagoda," in it enjoyed the reputation of being the "forefather of pagodas and temples in Central Shaanxi," because it held the finger bones of Sakyamuni--the founder of Buddhism.Visitors to the exhibitions in the Famen Temple Museum will gain a deeper appreciation of the Buddhist culture in ancient China, the religious importance, and follow the splendid history of the Famen Temple.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

As the symbol of the old-line Xian, Big Wild Goose Pagoda is a well-preserved ancient building and a holy place for Buddhists. It is located in the southern suburb of Xian City, Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Originally built in 652 during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), it functioned to collect Buddhist materials that were taken from India by the hierarch Xuanzang.

 Xuanzang started off from Chang'an (the ancient Xian), along the Silk Road and through deserts, finally arriving in India, the cradle of Buddhism. Enduring 17 years and traversing 100 countries, he obtained Buddha figures, 657 kinds of sutras, and several Buddha relics. Having gotten the permission of Emperor Gaozong (628-683), Xuanzang, as the first abbot of Da Ci'en Temple, supervised the building of a pagoda inside it. With the support of royalty, he asked 50 hierarchs into the temple to translate Sanskrit in sutras into Chinese, totaling 1,335 volumes, which heralded a new era in the history of translation. Based on the journey to India, he also wrote a book entitled 'Pilgrimage to the West' in the Tang Dynasty, to which scholars attached great importance.

  First built to a height of 60 meters (197 feet) with five stories, it is now 64.5 meters (211.6 feet) high with an additional two stories. It was said that after that addition came the saying-'Saving a life exceeds building a seven-storied pagoda'. Externally it looks like a square cone, simple but grand and it is a masterpiece of Buddhist construction. Built of brick, its structure is very firm. Inside the pagoda, stairs twist up so that visitors can climb and overlook the panorama of Xian City from the arch-shaped doors on four sides of each storey. On the walls are engraved fine statues of Buddha by the renowned artist Yan Liben of the Tang Dynasty. Steles by noted calligraphers also grace the pagoda.

The Bell Tower

The Bell Tower, a classical building with carved beams and painted rafters, has been served as the symbol of Xi’an. It stands in the center of the downtown area where the north street, the south street, the west street and the east street meet. And the tower house a huge bell which in ancient times was use to strike the time every morning. This is how the tower got its name. now it is an important historical monument in shaanxi Province. The Bell tower was first built in Ying Xiang temple in 1384 during the Ming dynasty.

 It was moved to its present site in 1582 as a result of the city‘s expansion program. There is a story about the Bell Tower. It’s said that the first emperor of Ming dynasty , Zhu yuanzhang , he was born in a poor family. Both his parents died when he was young, and he had to live a hard life. Later, he went to a temple to become a monk. When he ascended the throne, he was afraid of being deposed by someone of “real dragon”. Therefore, he gave orders to build bell tower all over the county to repress the “dragon spirits”.

  Xi’an has been the imperial capital city since ancient times. So the “dragon spirits ” must be very strong here. That’s why the bell tower in Xi’an was not only built earlier, but also bigger than the other ones in the country. The base of the tower is 1,337.4 square meters in size, 8.6 meters high and 35.5 meters wide. It was laid with blue bricks all over.

The whole building is 36 meters above ground. It is a brick-and –wood structure. The eaves are supported by colored “dou gong” a traditional structural system in which brackets are used to join columns and crossbeams, the use of dou gong made the whole building firm and beautiful.