Click here for Yong He Gong tour details
Yonghegong is a temple and monastery at the same time. The temple is situated in the northwestern and central part of the city of Beijing, which is more popular with it’s Romanized name – Peking. The place is also very popular under the name Yonghegong and is very often called just the YoungHe temple.
It is among the most popular temples in the world, for people who believe in that specific religion. The artwork in the temple is a mixture between Chinese, Tibetan and there is even some evidence of Mongolian artworks. If you ever go to that part of this world, it will be a really good thing to see, if you are not too busy with work, of course.
It opened a little bit after the middle of 16th century by the Qing Dynasty and in the beginning was used as a court by Prince YongZheng. The father oh YongZheng is KangXi. When he got on the throne in 1722, he converted half of this temple into a lamasery and the other half of this building was used as an imperial palace.
Thirteen years after he was announced as an emperor, Yong Zheng died and his people left his coffin in there, for the mourners to visit. After his death, the emperor after him gifted the place with imperial status and the way that was done, was by changing many f the motifs from turquoise to yellow color. Several years later, in 1744, many people from Mongolia and Tibet went to live there permanently.
Being also known as Yonghegong, it is now open for public visits and it has been like this since 1981, which was not really that long ago. The access to the temple is easy and quick, you can get there by subway train and no matter where you get on the train, you will want to go to the station named after the temple itself.
Once you are in that area, you will be able to visit a few more temples from the same type, which are within very close distance. The Yonghegong is situated on a central axis and the length of the complex is 480 meters. As it was mentioned earlier, the main gate is at the south end.
If you happen to visit China and Peking, Yonghegong is certainly a pace you should visit. Of course, there are many other things to see there too. You will have a wonderful time in that part of the globe.