Confucius Temple and Qinhuai River (Nanjing)

Confucius Temple Qinhuai River Scenic Area, National 5A Tourist Attraction · Nanjing, Jiangsu

The historic riverside heart of old Nanjing, where the Confucius Temple faces the Qinhuai River across a quarter of whitewashed, black-roofed buildings, red lanterns, painted pleasure boats and snack stalls. A temple to Confucius has stood here since 1034, and beside it grew the Jiangnan Examination Hall, the largest imperial examination centre in China, where more than twenty thousand candidates at a time sat locked in tiny brick cells for days, competing for places in the civil service; its surviving buildings now house the China Imperial Examination Museum. For centuries the Qinhuai River was also Nanjing's pleasure quarter, lined with teahouses, wine shops, courtesans' pavilions and the painted boats celebrated by poets from the Tang dynasty onward. Nearby Wuyi Lane recalls the aristocratic Wang and Xie clans of the fourth century, the Zhanyuan Garden preserves a Ming garden first laid out for the family of the founding general Xu Da, and the Former Residence of Li Xiangjun honours one of the famed courtesans of the late Ming. Most buildings were rebuilt in the 1980s, but the district is at its most atmospheric at night, when lantern-lit boats glide along the river, and during the Qinhuai Lantern Festival around Chinese New Year, when the whole area glows.

Confucius Temple, Gongyuan Street, Qinhuai District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Pedestrian streets open at all hours; paid attractions and river cruises roughly 9:00-22:00.

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