Mount Wutai

Mount Wutai

Mount Wutai is a national scenic area, a National AAAAA-level tourist attraction, a national forest park, a national geopark, and a UNESCO World Cultural Landscape Heritage site.

Mount Wutai, located in the northeastern corner of Wutai County in Xinzhou Prefecture, northeastern Shanxi Province, is one of China’s four famous Buddhist mountains. Alongside Mount Emei in Sichuan, Mount Putuo in Zhejiang, and Mount Jiuhua in Anhui, it is highly revered by pilgrims from both home and abroad. Situated on the "Roof of North China," it has a maximum elevation of 3,058 meters. The area features continuous mountain ranges, interlacing peaks, shapes resembling a crouching tiger and a coiled dragon, covering a total area of 2,837 square kilometers. Mount Wutai is surrounded by five peaks. These towering summits rise high above the clouds, have treeless, flat, and broad tops resembling earthen platforms—hence the name “Wutai” (Five Platforms). The five peaks are: East Peak (Wanghai Peak), West Peak (Guayue Peak), South Peak (Jinxiu Peak), North Peak, and Central Peak. With overlapping mountains, crisscrossing ravines, meandering streams, lush forests, basins nestled among peaks, the area forms a strikingly colorful and cool summer retreat ideal for sightseeing and escaping the heat.

Mount Wutai currently preserves 68 temples dating from the Tang Dynasty through seven different dynasties, including nine national key cultural relics protection units and six provincial-level ones.

Major structures include the Tang Dynasty Nanchan Temple and Foguang Temple, the Song Dynasty Hongfu Temple, the Jin Dynasty Yanqing Temple and Yanshan Temple, the Yuan Dynasty Guangji Temple and Sansheng Temple, the Ming Dynasty Shuxiang Temple, Xiantong Temple, Tayuan Temple, Yuanguang Temple, and Bishan Temple, as well as the Qing Dynasty Pusading and Zhenshan Temple, plus Republican-era structures like Nanshan Temple, Puhua Temple, Longquan Temple, Jingge Temple, and Zunsheng Temple. These grand ancient architectural complexes reflect China’s Buddhist temple culture across various dynasties since the Tang Dynasty. They serve as living specimens for studying ancient Chinese Buddhist architecture and hold a highly significant place in the architectural history of China and the world.

The central area of Mount Wutai, Taihuai Town, houses dozens of temples. As the core of the Five Great Temples, Xiantong Temple, Pusading, Tayuan Temple, Luohou Temple, and Shuxiang Temple are the soul of the ancient architectural complex in the region. Together with dozens of surrounding temples such as Bishan Temple, Yuanguang Temple, Jingge Temple, Nanshan Temple, and Longquan Temple, they form an imposing Buddhist architectural ensemble. This interconnected and magnificent cluster of ancient buildings fully showcases the architectural and cultural landscape of the Ming and Qing Dynasties at their peak.

The important architectural remains outside the central Mount Wutai area are well preserved. Temples are scattered throughout the outer regions. Due to their remote locations, some temples experienced intermittent periods of worship throughout history. Precisely because of this, wooden structures from earlier dynasties such as the Tang, Song, Jin, and Yuan have been preserved. For example, the Great Buddha Hall of Nanchan Temple from the Tang Dynasty is the oldest existing wooden structure in China, while the East Main Hall of Foguang Temple is the largest surviving building from the Tang Dynasty, holding an important place in both Chinese and global architectural history. The Mahavira Hall of Hongfu Temple from the Northern Song Dynasty, the Main Hall of Yanqing Temple and the Manjusri Hall of Foguang Temple from the Jin Dynasty, the Mahavira Hall of Guangji Temple, the Bodhisattva Hall of Yanshan Temple, and the Main Buddha Hall of Sansheng Temple from the Yuan Dynasty—all retain significant features of their respective architectural styles from those periods.

Mount Wutai preserves more than 150 Buddhist stupas of various styles dating from the Northern Wei Dynasty onward; it also houses over 146,000 Buddhist statues from the Tang Dynasty onward. The Tang Dynasty painted clay sculptures at Nanchan Temple and Foguang Temple, along with the Ming Dynasty suspended sculptures at Shuxiang Temple, represent outstanding masterpieces of Chinese sculpture. The site also preserves murals covering 2,380.1 square meters dating from the Tang Dynasty onward, with the most representative being the Tang Dynasty murals in the East Main Hall of Foguang Temple, the Ming Dynasty Arhat murals in the Manjusri Hall, and the Jin Dynasty murals painted in 1167 (the seventh year of the Dading era of the Jin Dynasty) by the imperial court painter Wang Kui on all four walls of the Manjusri Hall in Yanshan Temple.

Mount Wutai became an imperial Buddhist site as early as the Northern Wei Dynasty. Starting with Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, over a span of more than 1,000 years and across five dynasties, nine emperors visited Mount Wutai for pilgrimage a total of 18 times. A large amount of material evidence from these imperial visits still exists, including over 40 stone tablets inscribed with texts by emperors, 67 plaques and inscribed boards bestowed by the imperial family, and over 300 poems composed by emperors themselves.

At 18:36 Beijing time (12:36 local time) on June 26, 2009, during the 33rd session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Seville, Spain, China’s nomination for Mount Wutai as a World Cultural Heritage site was officially approved and inscribed on the World Heritage List. This marked the successful conclusion of Mount Wutai’s decade-long journey toward World Heritage recognition.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of National Scenic Areas