[2025 Yanling Attraction] Travel Guide for Xingguo Temple (Updated Jul)

#newyearadventure #tripblazers #china To find Xingguo Temple, a hidden piece of history in Yanling, Henan, you must first find Malan Town. Friendly locals greeted us when we stepped out of the car and there were red, hand written Fu’s pasted to each pillar and door by the resident monks, in preparation for the New Year. The pagoda is over 1000 years old and is beautiful in its own right before you find out that it has survived a lightning strike and a bomb! Plaques all around the site tell you more about this small and humble temple’s amazing story, I’m so glad we got to discover it today!

Xingguo Temple Pagoda is located 300 meters west of the intersection of Shangju Road and National Highway 230 in Yanling County, Xuchang City, Henan Province. The pagoda was built during the Taiping Xingguo period of the Northern Song Dynasty and is a brick structure. It is a hexagonal nine-story pavilion-style building. The pagoda is 27 meters high, with a circumference of 20 meters at the bottom of the pagoda body, which gradually decreases upwards. The pagoda base is 1 meter high, and the pagoda body extends 1 meter outward (now 3 meters after reinforcement). Each floor is decorated with brackets, eaves, and ribbons. The eaves of the pagoda extend 1 meter, with 1 pagoda door, 1 Buddha room, 6 door niches, and an iron pagoda. The inside of the pagoda is hollow, and there was originally a wooden ladder that could be climbed. The external structure of the pagoda body is rigorous, straight and lofty, and is a typical Northern Song Dynasty building. In June 1973, Xingguo Temple Pagoda was announced by the People's Government of Henan Province as a cultural relic protection unit in Henan Province. In May 2013, Xingguo Temple Pagoda was announced by the State Council of the People's Republic of China as a national key cultural relic protection unit. Ticket information: Free Opening hours: All day Transportation guide: You can take the No. 6 bus in Yanling County.

Xingguo Temple is located 100 meters west of Malan Village, Malan Town, Yanling County, Xuchang City, Henan Province. It was first built in the first year of the Taiping Xingguo era of the Song Dynasty (977 AD), hence the name Xingguo Temple. It has a history of over a thousand years. Covering an area of 30 mu, it is one of the main places for Buddhist believers in Yanling County to carry out religious activities. Xingguo Temple was destroyed during the Yuan Dynasty and was rebuilt by the monk Yuanguang in the Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty (1383). To its southwest is the well-preserved Xingguo Temple Pagoda, a hexagonal nine-story pagoda built during the Song Dynasty. In 1986, Xingguo Temple was designated as a cultural relic protection unit in Henan Province by the People's Government of Henan Province. Ticket Information: Free Opening Hours: All day Transportation: Take Bus No. 6 in Yanling County to get there.