Mountain Resort of Chengde

The mountain resort is a landscaped imperial park with a fabulous palace complex located in Chengde City. As the largest imperial garden in China, twice as large as the Summer Palace in Beijing, it covers 56.4 hectares and is bounded by a 10km wall.

It is said that Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty wanted the complex to mimic a Manchurian village, to show his disdain for fame and wealth. The principle of idealized naturalness governed the design of the park. With its twisting paths and streams, rockeries and hills. It's a fantasy recreation of rough northern terrain and southern Chinese beauty spots that the emperor would have seen on their tours of inspection. The whole is an attempt to combine water, buildings and plants in graceful harmony. Lord Macartney, visiting in 1793, noted its similarity to the soft beauties of an English manor park of the Romantic style. In addition to its aesthetic interest, the Mountain Resort is a rare historic vestige of the final development of feudal society in China.

The resort can be divided into two parts the palace quarter and scenic quarter. During its heyday, each year the emperors would like to come and stay here for about five to six months. In 1994, the Mountain Resort and the nearby temples were listed on the World Cultural Heritage sites.

Eight Outer Temples

Originally there were twelve temples in the foothills of the mountains around Chengde, but two have been destroyed and another two are dilapidated. They were built in the architectural styles of different ethnic nationalities, so that wandering among them is rather like being in a religious theme park. The surviving temples were all built between 1750 and 1780. Though varying in design, all the temples share Lamaist features?Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty found it politically expedient to promote Tibetan and Mongolian Lamaism as a way of keeping these troublesome minorities in line.

Putuozongsheng Temple

is the largest of the Chengde temples built in 1771, which is regarded as a mini-facsimile of Lhasa's Potala. The grand red terrace forms a Tibetan-style facade screening a Chinese-style interior, although many of the windows on the terrace are fake, and some of the white-washed buildings around the base are merely filled-in shapes.

Xumifoshou Temple

was built in honor of the sixth Panchan Lama, who stayed here in 1781. It incorporates elements of Tibetan and Han architecture and is an imitation of a temple in Shigatse, Tibet. At the highest point is a hall with eight gilded copper dragons commanding the roof ridges, and behind that sits a glazed-tile pagoda. 

Puning Temple

is also modeled on a Tibetan temple. It was built in 1755 to commemorate the Qing government's victory over Mongolian rebels at Junggar in Northwest China. The main feature is a statue of Avalokiteshvara (Guanyi or Goddess of Mercy), the largest wooden statue on the world, which reaches 22m in height boasting 42 arms with an eye on each palm.

Pule Temple

was built in 1766 by Emperor Qianlong as a place for Mongol envoys to worship, and its style is an odd mix of Han and Lamaist elements.