Dì Tán Park 地坛公园

和平里西街
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of North and East of the Imperial City

The main altar to see is that at Temple of Heaven (also see Altars for All Seasons), none of the others being as large or spectacular and none having as many surrounding buildings, or ones as intact. Dì Tán, the Altar of Earth, was, however, the second most important for imperial ceremonies. Occupied by foreign troops in 1860, and frequently a barracks for warlord soldiers in the 1920s and 30s, it was also the second to become a public space, opening as Jīngzhào Gōngyuán (Capital Park) in 1925. However, its prominently displayed educational slogans and heavy-handed educational exhibitions made it less popular than Zhōngshān Park and gave a preview of what was to become the norm after 1949.

The Hall of Cultural Relics (entered from its north side) and the altar were originally built in the Míng around 1530 as part of the Jiājìng emperor’s revision of ceremonies and extensive ceremonial site construction programme; they were reconstructed by the Qiánlóng emperor in 1749. When the grounds became a park, the hall became a library, changing to its current state only in 1986. It now houses models of a ceremony taking place. Other halls, open unpredictably (one held a wax museum that has disappeared elsewhere), have labels in surprising English, such as ‘Deity Warehouse’.

The altar, like that at the Temple of Heaven, is square to symbolise the earth. It’s a double-layered terrace surrounded by twin yellow-eaved walls. Sacrifices here were buried rather than burned.

The grounds are divided into gardens of no particular interest except that, as evidence of the changes in society and the growth of a secondary market for property, individuals and agencies selling and renting apartments can be found under the trees to the north of the altar. A temple fair has been revived and is held here in the spring.

In early October 1860, French and British forces set up mortars and field guns in the shadow of the compound’s walls, aimed at the Āndìng Mén (gate), which now survives only as the name for a Second Ring Road bridge. They dug trenches from which fire was to be maintained on any breach in the city walls created by the bigger guns, and housing around the altar’s south gate was commandeered and loopholes cut in its walls.

An ultimatum was issued that control of the Āndìng Mén must be handed over to the foreign forces by noon on 13 October. The Manchu authories finally capitulated only a minute before the deadline. According to one British participant:

Our troops took immediate possession, the French marching in after us. In a few minutes afterwards the Union Jack was floating from the walls of Pekin, the far-famed celestial capital, the pride of China, and hitherto esteemed impregnable by every soul in that empire. We took possession of the walls extending from the An-ting gate to the Tih-shing-mun [Déshèng Mén], the French holding the space to the left from the An-ting-mun to the south-east corner of the city. Our engineers at once placed the post in a defensible state, to resist any attack from within the city, and field guns were mounted upon the walls so as to command the interior approaches to the gate.

Garnet Wolseley, Narrative of the War with China in 1860, London, 1862

▶ Dì Tán Gōngyuán, Hépíng Lǐ Xī Jiē, t 6421 4657, www.dtpark.com
6am–8pm; altar and relics 6.30am–4.30pm. ¥2 entrance; ¥5 altar, ¥3 relics display. m Yōnghé Gōng (Lines 2 & 5) exit A. b to 地坛东门 (east gate): 117, 125; to 地坛西门 (west gate): 快速公交3线, 快速公交3区间, 快速公交3支线,
特11, 18, 75, 90电车内环, 90电车外环,104电车, 104快车, 108电车, 113, 119, 摆站119, 124电车, 125, 328, 407, 426, 430, 558, 758.

The park is only a short walk north of the Lama Temple, and there are various restaurants at its south gate, including a particularly kitsch branch of the Jīndǐng Xuān restaurant chain with its usual production-line dim sum (点心, diǎn xīn) from easy, point-to-order picture menus.

There are several restaurants including vegetarian and vegan options, on both sides of Yōnghé Gōng Dàjiē, along with a Costa Coffee, just south across the North Second Ring Road. There’s Western and Japanese food in Wǔ Dào Yíng Hútòng (五道营胡同) just south of the Ring Road and west.

Next in North and East of the Imperial City: Tōngjiào Sì
Previously: Confucianism (story)
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.

For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.