Temple of Heaven

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Temple of Heaven
Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the largest building in the Temple of Heaven
Location	Dongcheng, Beijing, China
Coordinates	39°52′56″N 116°24′24″E / 39.8822°N 116.4066°E / 39.8822; 116.4066 (Temple of Heaven)
Built	1406–1420 (Ming dynasty)
Website	tiantanpark.com
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial Altar in Beijing
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, ii, iii
Designated	1998 (22nd session)
Reference no.	881
Region	Asia-Pacific
Location of Temple of Heaven in Beijing Show map of Beijing Temple of Heaven (China) Show map of China

Temple of Heaven
"Temple of Heaven" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese	天坛
Traditional Chinese	天壇
Literal meaning	"Altar of Heaven"
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tiāntán IPA [tʰjɛ́ntʰǎn] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Tīn-tàahn Jyutping Tin1-taan4 Southern Min Tâi-lô Thinn-tuânn

The Temple of Heaven (simplified Chinese: 天坛; traditional Chinese: 天壇; pinyin: Tiāntán) is a complex of imperial religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for a good harvest. The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a 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..." as the "symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries."^[1]