The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the main building of the Temple of Heaven. As its name suggests, it is where emperors of Ming and Qing dynasty prayed for harvests. [Photo by Jia Yue for Chinadaily.com.cn]

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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