Badachu Park

Badachu Park, located at the southern foot of picturesque West Mountain of Beijing, is a national class-AAAA scenic tourism area, one of the first group of major historic sites under provincial protection and an exquisite park in Beijing. With a long history and rich Buddhist temple atmosphere, Badachu Park is a modern metropolitan mountain park, which is the nearest to the city center.

The Badachu Park (Photo credit: China Foto Press)Photo Gallery>>At Badachu Park, it is warm in the winter without strong wind, and is cool and comfortable in the summer. The eight ancient temples were constructed respectively in the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, and after repairs and reconstructions throughout the history, the ancient architectures of these temples are still well-preserved today. There are three places most worth visiting in Badachu Park. The first one is the Temple of Divine Light. At the temple, there are the towering pagoda with the tooth relics of Buddha hidden in it, the time-honored base of the Thousand-Buddhist-Statues Pagodafrom the Liao Dynasty, golden fish pond, the huge "Arhat wall" and the "Heart Sutra wall." The second is the Temple of Great Compassion. Inside the Mahavira Hall of the temple, there are the vivid statues of the 18 Arhats carved by Liu Yuan, a renowned sculptor in the Yuan Dynasty. The third is the Temple of Fragrant World, with complete sets of Buddhist statues and offering devices. The most famous are the two steles with dragon heads and tortoise bases, which bear the inscriptions by three emperors of the Qing Dynasty -- Kangxi, Qianlong and Jiaqing.

Badachu Park organizes two large-scale traditional tourism and cultural activities each year -- the Badachu China Gardens' Tea Culture Festival in spring, and the Badachu Mountain-Climbing Festival on the Double ninth Day on the lunar calendar in autumn.

(Credit: Beijing Tourism Administration. Click here for further information.)