The Temple of Earth, also known as the Fangze Temple, is the second largest of the five temples in the ancient capital Beijing. It was built in the ninth year of the reign of the Jiajing emperor in the Ming dynasty (1530 AD).
The Temple of Earth is a solemn, simple and elegant royal altar, which is the place where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties sacrificed the god of "Imperial Land", and is also the largest altar of sacrifice in China.
The total area of the altar is 37.4 hectares, which is square in shape, and the entire building is conceived and designed in accordance with the traditions and symbolic legends of China's ancient "orbicular sky and rectangular earth", "azure sky and yellow earth ", "south heaven and north earth", "Dragon and Phoenix", "Qiankun(heaven and earth)" and so on. The Temple of Earth now has ancient buildings such as the Fangze Altar, the Imperial Chamber, the Pavilion of the Sacrifice Animals, the Fasting Palace, and the Shrine.
In recent years, the park has repaired ancient buildings in accordance with the planning ideas of ecological and exquisite gardens. The restored bell tower and the sacred horse hall, the repaired imperial chamber, archway, ancient altar wall and Fang Ze altar, etc., reproduce the classical garden style; also, large-scale renovation of the garden road were carried out, including the new Chinese medicine cultural health garden and other cultural landscapes, to create atmosphere of culture; in order to emphasize the straightness and spaciousness of the layout, a large-scale greening transformation started.
The current lawn area of the park is 145,200 square meters, the green coverage rate is 78.8%, and there are 176 ancient trees that are over 100 years old, including 89 first-class ancient trees. After the renovation, the park has carefully maintained towering ancient trees, straight garden roads, winding paths, spacious squares, and flat square brick roads, which set off the former royal temple more elegant and solemn.
At the same time, the park strives to explore, protect, and properly develop and utilize the unique historical resources such as the culture of the earth worshipping and the temple fair, and gradually build the park into a window to display China's broad and profound culture; under the strategic guidance of "culture to build parks, tourism to boost parks", relying on the cultural resources, the Temple of the Earth holds or undertakes various cultural activities, which not only improves the cultural taste of the park, but also enriches the activities of tourists.
The Annual Ditan Spring Festival Cultural Temple Fair is unique in the Beijing Temple Fairs by relying on the ancient temple, focusing on ethnic, folk characteristics, and cultural taste, and receives millions of Chinese and foreign tourists every year. The Temple Fair has become the image symbol and famous brand of the park.
In addition, various activities such as the Golden Autumn Ginkgo Festival, tree adoption, Tourist Art Festival, People's Weekend Show, and Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Festival held every year in Ditan have also been welcomed by the public. The former royal temple has become a garden cultural tourism resort for tourists to rest, visit and entertain today.
Address: Andingmenwai Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
