Nanjing travel guide

Top 10 sights in Nanjing

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   1© Haha169 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Zifeng Tower

   A 450-metre tower of 2010 in the Gulou district, the tallest building in Nanjing and among the tallest in China. Its glass skin folds in a spiral meant to suggest a dragon climbing, and the observation deck is on the 72nd floor.

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   Porcelain Tower of Nanjing

   A nine-storey octagonal pagoda of the Great Bao'en Temple, faced in white porcelain brick with coloured glazed tiles, and reckoned one of the wonders of the world by European visitors in the seventeenth century. Taiping forces destroyed it in the 1850s; a modern steel tower now stands over the excavated foundations.

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3. 

   3© Zhangzhugang · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Ming Xiaoling

   The tomb of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty, at the foot of Purple Mountain, whose plan set the pattern for every later imperial tomb including those at Beijing. Its sacred way curves rather than running straight and is lined with stone elephants, camels and lions.

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4. 

   4© Jiong Sheng from London, United Kingdom · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum

   The mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen, built between 1926 and 1929 on Purple Mountain, reached by 392 granite steps in eight flights. Blue glazed tiles and the words all under heaven belongs to the people were chosen to mark a republican rather than an imperial burial.

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5. 

   5© Tevatron · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Nanjing Museum

   The provincial museum, founded in 1933 as China's first national museum, holding over 430,000 objects. Its Republic of China gallery reconstructs a 1930s Nanjing street with shops and a cinema, and admission is free with booking.

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   6© Ken Marshall from China · CC BY 2.0

   Presidential Palace of Nanjing

   A compound that served in turn as the Taiping Heavenly King's palace, the Qing viceroy's office and, from 1927 to 1949, the presidential office of the Republic of China. The offices of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek are kept as they were.

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7. 

   7© SY · CC BY-SA 4.0

   City Wall of Nanjing

   The Ming city wall, built from 1366 over twenty-one years and, at about thirty-five kilometres, the longest city wall ever constructed; twenty-five kilometres survive. Zhonghua Gate is a fortified barbican of four successive gates with twenty-seven soldiers' chambers inside.

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   8© Inhorw · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Jiming Temple

   A temple in Xuanwu district beside the lake, founded in 300 and one of the oldest in Nanjing, rebuilt many times. Its Yaoshi pagoda looks over the city wall and the lake, and the cherry blossom on the road below it fills the city in late March.

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   9© Jakub Hałun · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders

   A memorial hall opened in 1985 over a mass grave of the 1937 massacre, in which Chinese accounts put the dead at 300,000. Its courtyard of pebbles, the wall of names and the excavated bone pit are shown with survivor testimony; it is not an easy visit but Nanjing cannot be read without it.

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10. 

    10© Farm · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Qixia Temple

    A temple on Qixia Mountain twenty-two kilometres northeast of the centre, founded in 489 and the cradle of the Sanlun school of Chinese Buddhism. The Thousand Buddha Cliff behind it holds some five hundred figures carved into the rock from the fifth century on.

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1. 

   1© Tevatron · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Ming Palace

   The imperial palace of the early Ming, built from 1366 and the model for the Forbidden City in Beijing, which copied its layout when the capital moved north in 1421. It was dismantled and quarried over centuries; foundation stones, gate bases and marble bridges remain in a public park.

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2. 

   2© そらみみ · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Nanjing Fuzimiao

   The Confucius temple and former imperial examination halls on the Qinhuai river, rebuilt after wartime destruction and now the city's busiest night district. Lantern-lit boats work the river, which is what the phrase ten miles of Qinhuai referred to.

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3. 

   3© Shallowell · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tomb of the King of Boni

   The tomb of Abdul Majid Hassan, ruler of Boni on Borneo — often taken as the predecessor of Brunei — who died on a tribute visit to the Yongle emperor in 1408 and was buried with Chinese royal honours. It stands in a park three kilometres south of the city's south gate.

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4. 

   4© Ryu, Cheol · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Linggu Temple

   A temple founded in 515 on Purple Mountain, whose Beamless Hall of 1381 is vaulted in brick without a single timber beam. The Nationalist government made it a memorial to the dead of the Northern Expedition; a nine-storey pagoda of 1929 stands behind it.

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   5© Zhou Guanhuai · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo

   A zoo in Xuanwu district on sixty-eight hectares, of which eighty-five per cent is woodland. It became widely known in China after refusing commercial animal performances and publishing its accounts, and it runs breeding programmes for native species.

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   6© Quentin Scouflaire from Berlin, Germany · CC BY 2.0

   Yuejiang Lou

   A tower on Lion Mountain northwest of the centre, planned by the Hongwu Emperor in 1374 but not built until 2001 — six hundred years after the essay describing it was written. The Yangtze is to the north and the city to the south from the top.

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7. 

   7© 螺钉 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Taiping Kingdom History Museum

   A museum in the Zhan Garden devoted to the Taiping Rebellion of 1851-64, the civil war that made Nanjing its capital and cost perhaps twenty million lives. Documents, weapons and the movement's own printed proclamations are held here.

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8. 

   8© This illustration was made by Peter Potrowl. Please credit this with : © Peter P · CC BY 3.0

   Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

   The Catholic cathedral of Nanjing on Shigu Road, first built in 1870 and rebuilt in 1928 after damage during the Northern Expedition. It seats about a thousand and is one of the few churches in the city in continuous use.

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   9© Berthe · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Jinjue Mosque

   A mosque in Qinhuai district, said to have been built in 1430 at the request of the admiral Zheng He, a Muslim, on his return from the western voyages. The prayer hall follows Chinese temple form; the Ming stone tablet recording the foundation survives.

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10. 

    10© Px820 at Japanese Wikipedia / http://px820.onmitsu.jp · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Zhan Garden

    A Ming garden of the 1360s beside the Confucius temple, originally part of the residence of Xu Da, Hongwu's chief general. It packs rockeries, waterfalls and a pond into 1.7 hectares in the Jiangnan manner, and forms the grounds of the Taiping museum.

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