LandmarkThe Old South City: Confucius Temple, the Qinhuai River and Zhonghua Gate
DA BAO'EN TEMPLE RUINS PARK (SITE OF THE PORCELAIN TOWER) · DA BAO'EN SI YIZHI
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The Old South City: Confucius Temple, the Qinhuai River and Zhonghua Gate · 32.011°N 118.778°E
TicketedClosure day
The one Nanjing monument many Europeans once knew by name: the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, the nine-storey glazed pagoda of the Ming Bao'en Temple, which Western writers counted among the wonders of the medieval world and which was destroyed in the Taiping war in the mid-19th century. What stands here now is not that tower. Excavations in the late 2000s found the temple's foundations and a Song-dynasty crypt beneath the pagoda site; heritage rules then ruled out a copy, so in 2015 the city put up a 93-metre steel-and-glass tower over the crypt as a protective shelter, the same shape and proportions as the old one but built of modern materials.
EntranceAbout 400 m south of Zhonghua Gate across the outer Qinhuai; Zhonghuamen station on Metro Line 1 is about 500 m to the south-west (OSM straight line)
Last verified 2026-09-24
How to book
No booking; buy online or at the manned window, which takes cards and cashSource: m.jstv.comAsk before you go: 025-52009999