Heritage through lenses-The Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven, or the Altar of Heaven, was founded in 1420 during the reign of Mingle Emperor of Ming dynasty. The building complex was used by the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties as a place to offer sacrifice to God and pray for good harvests.

Covering an area of 273 hectares, the Temple of Heaven is the biggest and the most complete existing imperial sacrificial building complex in the world. The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as “a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations”.

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Fantastic Beijing -- Hutongs

A Hutong is a traditional alley, characteristic of an old Beijing city. A total of 7000 Hutongs have been built throughout the capital in straight lines under strict construction guildlines. The longest Hutong starts from the Beijing Legation Quarter, Dong Jiao Min Xiang,to the Xijiao Min Xiang, and has a total length of 6.5 kilometers, while the shortest Hutong is One-inch Street at only several meters' long.

The narrowest Hutong is only about 0.7 meters wide. Therefore, people carrying even a little bit of extra weight have to hold their breath to pass through it. Formed during the Yuan, Ming and Qing, dynasties thousands of Hutongs surround the supreme Imperial Palace from all directions. They are woven into the fabric of people's daily lives.

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Related:Three must-see hutongs, insight into old Beijing

Top 8 haunted places in Beijing

Are you an atheist? Do you believe that ghosts really exist? As a city with a rich past, Beijing has quite a few spooky places that are thought to be haunted by the deceased.

While some of the stories are groundless and have no actual proof, the sheer bone-chilling factor attached is enough to make the place attractive in a mysterious sense. One thing that can be said for sure is that next time you walk past Prince Gong’s Mansion and get shivers down your spine, you are not alone.

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Night scene of Qianmen Street in Beijing

A series of photos shows the night scene of the Qianmen Street, a well-known commercial street in downtown Beijing, capital of China.

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Related:Visiting Beijing on Chinese new years