The Hanging Temple or Hanging Monastery (simplified Chinese: 悬空寺; traditional Chinese: 懸空寺; pinyin: Xuánkong Sì) is a temple built into a cliff (75 m or 246 ft above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Shanxi province, China. The closest city is Datong, 65 kilometers to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it includes Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian elements. The structure is kept in place with wooden crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure was hidden.
History
According to the history of Hengshan Mountain, construction of the temple started at the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty by only one man, a monk named Liao Ran (了然). Over a history of more than 1,600 years many repairs and extension led to its present day scale.
