Wutai, Xinzhou, Shanxi, China
五台山 · Wǔtái Shān
Five flat-topped peaks, the "five terraces", ring a high valley in northern Shanxi where more than fifty Buddhist temples crowd round a white Tibetan stupa. The mountain of Manjushri, bodhisattva of wisdom, it has drawn pilgrims from China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea and Japan for fifteen hundred years, and its outlying valleys keep two of the oldest wooden buildings in China.
Photo: Popolon, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Wutai rises to over 3,000 metres, the roof of northern China, cold enough to be called Qingliang, "clear and cool". Buddhist sutras placed Manjushri on a "clear and cool mountain" in the north-east, and by the 5th century Chinese Buddhists had identified it with Wutai. The first temple, Xiantong, is traditionally dated to the 1st century.
Under the Tang (618–907) the mountain became an international centre: Japanese and Korean monks walked here, Tibetan and Mongol Buddhism later made it their own, and Qing (1644–1912) emperors came again and again. In 1937 two architects found a Tang hall still standing in a valley to the west. In 2009 Wutai was listed as a World Heritage Site, a cultural landscape of temples and peaks.
One ticket admits you to the scenic area; some temples ask a small fee of their own, and Foguang Temple charges separately.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Wutaishan scenic area | 135 yuan |
| Xiantong, Tayuan, Pusading and other temples | Small fees at some temples |
| Dailuoding chairlift | Extra |
| Foguang Temple | Separate ticket |
In the middle of Taihuai, the village in the valley, rises a white stupa 56 metres tall, designed in 1302 by the Nepalese master Araniko, with bells hanging from its rim. Pilgrims walk round it clockwise turning prayer wheels. Around it, roof after roof: Chinese temples with grey tiles, Tibetan ones with yellow tiles, and above, on the hill of Pusading, the temple where the Qing emperors stayed.
Then, if you have a car, drive an hour west to the Foguang Temple, whose East Hall was built in 857: a Tang building with its original statues and paintings, rediscovered by Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin.
"You climb five peaks." The terraces are far apart; walking all five, the "great pilgrimage", takes two days. Most visitors stay in the valley and climb only Dailuoding, where the five Manjushris are gathered.
"It is Tibetan Buddhist." Both Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism are practised here, side by side.
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English and Japanese ones.
Taihuai's temples are close together; allow a day. Foguang Temple is about an hour's drive to the south-west.
The stupa of 1302 and the temple around it, the symbol of the mountain.
The oldest and largest temple, with a brick hall built without beams and a small hall cast entirely of bronze in 1609, its walls covered with ten thousand little Buddhas.
Up 108 steps, the yellow-tiled temple of the Tibetan Buddhist lamas, where Kangxi and Qianlong stayed.
The temple of Manjushri's image, with a great statue of the bodhisattva riding a lion.
A temple on the hill east of the valley, reached by 1,080 steps or a chairlift, which gathers the five Manjushris of the five terraces so that pilgrims need not climb all five.
The East Hall of 857, one of the oldest wooden buildings in China, with Tang statues, murals and calligraphy on its beams.
In 840, when Ennin reached Wutai, the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious died and his sons began to divide his empire.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 840 | The Japanese monk Ennin reaches Wutai | Louis the Pious dies and the Frankish empire is divided |
| 857 | The East Hall of Foguang Temple is built | Vikings sack Paris for the second time |
| 1302 | Araniko designs the Great White Pagoda | Flemish townsmen defeat French knights at Courtrai |
| 1937 | Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin find the Tang hall at Foguang | The Golden Gate Bridge opens |
| 2009 | Listed as a World Heritage Site | Usain Bolt runs 100 metres in 9.58 seconds |
One line to remember: the mountain of wisdom, where fifty temples crowd round a white stupa and a Tang hall waited a thousand years to be found.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
Wutai is full of stories of pilgrims who met a poor old man or a woman with a child, refused them, and later learned that it had been Manjushri himself in disguise.
Source: Told in the Tang "Records of Qingliang" and by monks today
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. Entry ticket and booking from 2025–2026 visitor guides (Ctrip, Qunar); some temple fees are from a 2023 guide and may have changed.
Checked 2026-11-12
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