Beijings historical building complexes

Beijing's complexes of ancient buildings were all designed with special functions in mind from altars used by emperors for important religious ceremonies to ancient universities that nurtured Chinese scholars throughout the ages. Today we'll look at just a few of these building complexes still well preserved to this day.

Altar of Land and Grain

The Altar of Land and Grain is located in Beijing's Zhongshan park. Known in Chinese as "She Ji Tan", the characters for land and grain also used to be synonymous with the word for "country" or "nation". Emperors worshiped at the Altar of Land and Grain to pray for good weather and harvests but also before going into battle, and during natural disasters such as droughts or floods.

TheAltarofLandandGrainislocatedinBeijing'sZhongshanpark.

The Altar was built in 1421 by the Yongle Emperor, symmetrically opposite the Imperial Ancestral Temple. With three tiers of terraces, the altar is made of white marble. Five colors of soil are spread on the upper terrace, representing metal, wood, water, fire and earth the five elements believed to compose the physical world by ancient Chinese. The area around the altar became a park in 1914 named Zhongshan park in memory of revolutionary forerunner Sun Yat-sen.

Withthreetiersofterraces,thealtarismadeofwhitemarble.Five
colorsofsoilarespreadontheupperterrace,representingmetal,
wood,water,fireandearththefiveelementsbelievedtocomposethe
physicalworldbyancientChinese.

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