Yuanwei Hall

Yuanwei Hall

Yuanwei Hall is a cultural relics protection unit of Xiang'an District.

Yuanwei Hall is located at No. 218, Wujiawei Street, Maxiang Town, Xiang'an District. It is a county-level cultural relics protection unit dating back to the Ming Dynasty.

Commonly known as Chiwang Palace, Yuanwei Hall is located on Wujia Mei Street in Maxiang Town. Originally built in the Wugu Market area of Maxiang, it was relocated to its current site during the Tianqi era (1621–1627) of the Ming Dynasty. The hall has been renovated and expanded in the 29th year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1764), the 4th year of the Republic of China (1915), and in 1982 and 1995 after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The building faces east and features a tiled, hard mountain-style structure with brick and wood construction. It consists of a front and rear hall, with a total width of 7.95 meters and depth of 15.1 meters. It is considered the ancestral temple of the Chiwang (Chi River King) belief system shared across Fujian and Taiwan, and is recognized as one of the Four Major Folk Belief Sacred Sites in Southern Fujian alongside Meizhou’s Mazu Temple, Sanping’s Clear Water Ancestral Master Temple, and the Cih Ji Dian (Mercy Temple) of Baosheng Dadi in Qing and Bai Jiao. Legend has it that Chiwang, whose name was Chi Ran (also called Decheng), styled himself Fengchun, was a native of Nanjing and a military jinshi (advanced scholar) during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty. He served in Southern Fujian and died while striving to relieve the people’s suffering, prompting local residents to build a temple in his honor. Today, there are over 360 Chiwang worship branches spread across Taiwan and Southeast Asia. In 2001, it was listed among the first batch of Taiwan-related cultural relics and historic sites in Xiamen.

Protected area: Extends 12.70 meters beyond the main gate, 6.7 meters to each side, and 5 meters beyond the rear wall.

Maxiang Town: A town under the jurisdiction of Xiang'an District. It boasts well-developed land and water transportation, lying at the transport hub connecting Xiamen, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou. The town is traversed by the Quanzhou-Xiamen Expressway, National Highway 324, and Xiang'an Boulevard. The town center is 33 kilometers from Xiamen City and 55 kilometers from Quanzhou. Covering a total area of 66.87 square kilometers, it governs 27 administrative villages, 99 natural villages, and 7 community neighborhood committees, with a population of 80,000. It is one of the important hometowns of overseas Chinese and ancestral lands for Taiwanese in Southern Fujian. The town has 34,000 mu of arable land, 14,500 mu of tidal flats, 30,000 mu of aquaculture areas, and a coastline stretching 11.4 kilometers... More details about Maxiang Town++