Chengde Mountain Resort and Outlying Temples
2 min readChengde City is located in the northeast part of Hebei Province，230km from Being.Announced among the first 24 historical and cultural ciies of the naltion，Chengde has the largest existing royal garden on his land：Mountain Resort and the outlying temples of various nationalities，which，in December of 1994, were inscribed in World Heritage List by World Heritage Committee of UNESCO.
The resort is also called “Tour Palace at Rehe Hot River”, first construc-ted in the 18th century during the reigns of Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong.
It was a second political center apart from Beiling, for the emperor would stay here for about half a year to attend to poliftical, military, ethnic, and for-eign affairs.
The design of the resot takes advantage of the natural and wild scenes for the carefully constructed buildings of over 120 groups, which in-tegrate the fecatures of both the northern meadows and the southern water-scape, in a layout of lake in the southeast, mountain in the northwest, and plain in the northeast.
The 12temples flanking the resort occupy an area of 472 000m2. They are just like historical milestones to mark the unity of all ethnic groups of Qing Dynasty. Architecturlly, they are in combined style of Han, Tibetan, and many other ethnic groups.
The Mountain Resort for Escaping the Heat and the temples around it are located in Chengde Cily, Hebei Province. Its construction lasted 89 years from 1703(the 42nd year of the Qing Kangxi reign) to 1792(the 57th year of the Qing Qianlong reign). The various buildings possess characteristics of the scenery of both north and south China-maiesty and elegance. Be-ing but so kilometers from Beiling and that documents could arrive from one place to the other the same day, Kangxi, Qianlong and emperors after them would come here with their harem and ministers every year from the third day of the third lunar month to the ninth day of the ninth month. The emperors continued to discuss court affairs and received the nobility of China’s various nationalities and foreign envoys here and it became the sec-ond polifical center of the Qing Dynasty. The main hall called Danpo-ingcheng built entirely of a fine-grained hardwood-nanmu-is austere and unadorned. Wenin Pavilion is built to house the “Complete Works of the Four Treasures”compiled in the Qing Dynasty. This copy is now in the collection of the National tibrary of China. Also in the grounds are Jinshan Temple，Temple of Smoke and Rain and Ruyi Oasis.
Outside the enclosure of the Mountain Resort 12 lama temples dot the slopes in the north and in the east.They manifest the Qing policy of uniting the nationalities and befriending their nobility.The temples that remain to this day include Puning，Pule，Xumifushou，Putuzongsheng，Anyuan and Shuxiang.
