Shanxi's ancient architecture draws global attention

(ECNS) -- Shanxi Province in north China, known as the "treasure house of ancient Chinese architecture," has seen surging global interest in its centuries-old wooden structures.

Home to 28,027 ancient buildings, Shanxi holds China's three surviving Tang Dynasty wooden structures, along with 518 early buildings from the Yuan Dynasty or earlier, the largest such concentration in the country.

An Hai, deputy director of the Shanxi Provincial Institute for the Protection of Ancient Architecture and Painted Murals, said the province's greatest appeal lies in how authentic its culture is. "Authenticity is the most essential value of cultural heritage and the foundation of conservation," he said, adding that these structures embody a harmony between people and nature, the artistic beauty of wooden architecture, and a sense of national confidence.

An Hai recounted a story from 1937, when Chinese architect Liang Sicheng and his team from the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture confirmed that the Foguang Temple in Wutai County dated to the Tang Dynasty. Their findings, published in a Beijing newspaper just days after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, disproved the claim by Japanese scholars of the time that "China no longer has wooden structures from the Tang Dynasty or earlier."

Today, the Foguang Temple, now 1,169 years old, has become a symbol of national confidence. Visitor numbers to the Foguang and Nanchan temples more than doubled between 2023 and 2025, topping 300,000, and kept climbing through the first half of 2026, up nearly 40%.

In 2025, various vloggers from the UK, France, Ukraine, and other countries all explored Shanxi's ancient sites. Several built scale models of the brackets used in Buddhist temples, struck by how the interlocking components reflected a philosophy of mutual support and harmony.

Shanxi's wooden architecture resonates globally not only for its visual beauty but also for the wisdom embedded in its design, a universal appeal that transcends borders and language.

(By Tang Yuxian)