About Xi'an Museum

Xi'an Museum

The Xi'an Museum (西安博物院; pinyin Xī'ān Bówùyuàn) is a museum complex on Youyi West Road in Xi'an, Shaanxi, that brings together three elements rarely combined in a single institution: a modern museum, a Tang-era historic site, and landscaped gardens. Covering 160,000 square metres in total and built at a total investment of 220 million RMB, it was officially opened on 18 May 2007, National Museum Day. In 2012 it was appraised by the National Cultural Heritage Administration as a national first-grade museum, placing it in the highest tier of Chinese museums. For visitors to Xi'an — a city that served as capital under multiple dynasties — the museum offers a focused account of the city itself, distinct from the broader provincial narrative presented elsewhere in the city.

Location and the shape of the complex

The museum stands in the Beilin District, about two kilometres from the southwestern section of the Xi'an City Wall, centred on the Small Wild Goose Pagoda and the Jianfu Temple historic area. The complex comprises three parts: the museum proper, the Tang-era Small Wild Goose Pagoda and Jianfu Temple historic area, and the museum gardens. Buildings and visitor routes are arranged along the axis of the pagoda, so that the modern exhibition building, the historic temple precinct and the gardens read as a single composition rather than as separate attractions sharing a fence. Sources describe the site as covering 254 mu, or about 41.8 acres, in some accounts of the wider scenic area, while the museum complex itself is recorded at 160,000 square metres. The main museum building was designed by Zhang Jinqiu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering who was also the architect of the Shaanxi History Museum. Its design is described as drawing on the traditional concept of a round heaven and square earth and on the layout of the Mingtang, giving the contemporary building a deliberate dialogue with the historic structures beside it.

Origins and opening in 2007

Unlike many Chinese city museums founded in the mid-twentieth century, the Xi'an Museum is a twenty-first-century creation. It was conceived as a new kind of urban museum — one that would protect and interpret an existing nationally important historic site while also housing the city's archaeological collections in purpose-built galleries. Construction brought together conservation of the Jianfu Temple precinct, landscaping of gardens, and a new exhibition building. When the complex officially opened on 18 May 2007, the date itself was symbolic: 18 May is observed as International Museum Day, known in China as National Museum Day. The opening therefore presented the museum from the start as both a local history institution and a participant in a national and international museum culture. Its appraisal in 2012 as a national first-grade museum, in the second batch of such assessments by the National Cultural Heritage Administration, confirmed that its collections, displays and management had reached the standard required of China's leading museums within five years of opening.

Jianfu Temple, the imperial temple behind the pagoda

The historic heart of the site is Jianfu Temple. The temple was originally named Xianfu Temple and was founded in the Tang dynasty in 684, in the first year of the Wenming era. It was established by Li Dan — the future Emperor Ruizong — to offer blessings for his deceased father, Emperor Gaozong. In 690, during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, it was renamed Jianfu Temple. As an imperial temple in the Tang capital of Chang'an, Jianfu Temple became one of the significant Buddhist scripture translation sites of the dynasty, attracting eminent monks. The Tang astronomer-monk Yi Xing is recorded as having practised Buddhism at the temple alongside the esoteric masters Śubhakarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi, a detail that underlines the temple's place in both religious and scientific history. The monk Yijing, whose travels to India and Southeast Asia are a major source for seventh-century Buddhism, is associated with the scriptures that the pagoda was built to store. The original Tang temple was largely destroyed in the chaos and wars at the end of the Tang dynasty, leaving the pagoda as its principal survivor. The temple buildings seen today were substantially rebuilt in the Ming and Qing dynasties, broadly following the Ming layout, with halls arranged along the central axis aligned with the pagoda, including the south gate and the bell and drum towers.

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda, originally named the Jianfu Temple Pagoda, was built in 707–709, during the Jinglong period of Emperor Zhongzong's reign, to store Buddhist scriptures brought from India by Yijing. It stands 43.4 metres tall, with a base 11.38 metres long, and preserves the style and features of the early Tang dynasty as a classic example of a dense-eaved, square brick pagoda. It was originally built with 15 storeys; earthquake damage in the Ming dynasty destroyed the top two storeys, so 13 storeys survive in its present form above ground in most descriptions of its visible tiers. Remarkably, historical records note that the pagoda has withstood repeated earthquakes without collapsing, a resilience often discussed in accounts of traditional Chinese brick construction. Together with the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, it remains a significant symbol of Tang Chang'an. In 1961 the pagoda was declared a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level by the State Council. On 22 June 2014, at the 38th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a component site of the Silk Roads listing, recognising its testimony to cultural exchange along the Silk Road. Within the temple precinct stands a massive iron bell cast in 1192 during the Jin dynasty, weighing over 10,000 kilograms; in the Qing dynasty it was rung every morning, giving rise to the celebrated sight known as the Morning Bell of the Wild Goose Pagoda.

The collection: 130,000 artefacts

The museum's collection includes 130,000 artefacts, of which more than 14,400 are rated as national third-tier precious artefacts and above. Many pieces were unearthed in and around Xi'an and span the periods when the city was a capital, notably the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties, as well as later periods through to the Ming and Qing. The exhibition section has an area of over 16,000 square metres, with exhibits occupying more than 5,000 square metres. Treasures highlighted in accounts of the museum include a Tang sancai flying horse, a gold-framed jewel-inlaid gold flower ornament, a Qin cloud-patterned high-stem jade cup, and a gilded Amitabha Buddha statue made by Dong Qin. These individual pieces illustrate the range of the holdings — from courtly luxury goods and ritual objects to Buddhist sculpture — and the depth of material that archaeology in the Xi'an region continues to provide. Because Xi'an was the capital for 13 dynasties in the museum's framing, its collection can trace urban and court culture over an unusually long span from a single place.

The permanent exhibition: Ancient Capital Xi'an

The museum's thematic permanent exhibition, Ancient Capital Xi'an, is the core of the basic display. Occupying about 2,485 square metres in the basic exhibition hall, it presents more than 660 sets of cultural exhibits tracing the development of ancient Xi'an and the social life of its people during the dynasties when Xi'an was China's capital. A signature feature is its series of city models, showing Chang'an and Xi'an from the Zhou through the Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The models reveal the scale, layout and living conditions of the capital cities in different periods, allowing visitors to compare, for example, the vast gridded plan of Tang Chang'an with the more compact Ming city enclosed by the surviving city wall. Alongside the basic exhibition, the museum organises its displays into basic, thematic and temporary exhibition sections. Temporary exhibitions typically draw on cultural and historical relics from districts and counties of Xi'an, rotating material from the wider collection — described as totalling more than 20,000 items awaiting presentation in groups — so that the displays can change without diminishing the permanent narrative.

Thematic halls: Buddhism, painting, jade and seals

The thematic exhibition area covers Buddhist statue art, calligraphy and painting, jade, and seals. The Buddhist art zone displays over 120 exhibits, including Buddhist stone statues and copper statues, showing the important status of Buddhism in ancient Chang'an — a fitting emphasis for a museum built around a Tang Buddhist temple and pagoda. The calligraphy and painting section presents over 100 works. In the jade zone, about 120 pieces of refined jade articles are classified according to their different uses, helping visitors distinguish ritual, ornamental and everyday functions. More than 200 seals are on show, presenting both official and private seals and illustrating the administrative and personal culture of sealing in imperial China. Together, these specialist displays complement the chronological city history of the main exhibition: where Ancient Capital Xi'an tells the story of the city as a whole, the thematic halls allow a closer study of the crafts, beliefs and bureaucratic practices that shaped daily and court life within it.

Gardens, setting and the visitor experience

The third part of the complex, the museum gardens, is integral to its identity. Xi'an Museum has been described as a historical and cultural site that combines a grand museum, an ancient pagoda and a tranquil park as a whole, and as a place where local residents as well as travellers can learn the history of Xi'an and enjoy a peaceful, relaxed setting. The garden-style layout, with water, planting and open space around the pagoda and temple axis, echoes the historic character of the Jianfu Temple precinct and provides a buffer between the nationally protected monument and the modern city around it. This combination distinguishes the Xi'an Museum from a conventional gallery building: a visit moves between indoor exhibitions of excavated objects, an authentic Tang pagoda in its temple grounds, and landscaped gardens, so that the artefacts in the cases can be understood in the very landscape from which the city's history unfolded.

Role, research and standing today

As the comprehensive history museum focused specifically on Xi'an, the museum combines cultural relic collection, scientific research, exhibition and public education. It should not be confused with the Shaanxi History Museum, which tells the story of the whole province; the Xi'an Museum's remit is the city and its immediate districts and counties, unearthed relics and the historical culture of the Xi'an region. That city-level focus, anchored in a World Heritage pagoda and a Tang imperial temple, gives it a distinctive place among China's first-grade museums. Its 130,000 artefacts, its models of successive capitals, and its setting together make it both a research collection and a civic space — a museum where the biography of a single, exceptionally long-lived capital city can be followed, dynasty by dynasty, in objects, buildings and grounds that survive side by side.