Small Wild Goose Pagoda & Xi'an Museum

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda stands within the grounds of Jianfu Temple in Beilin District, built between 707 and 709 AD during the Tang dynasty, and is a noticeably slimmer, more delicate structure than its larger namesake, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda across the city. The pagoda originally rose 15 stories to about 45 meters, but a major 16th-century earthquake split the top two stories, which never fell, leaving today's 13-story, 43-meter tower with a visible crack in its silhouette that has become part of local lore about the pagoda's structural resilience. Set among mature trees, courtyards, and small halls that survive from Jianfu Temple's original layout, the site retains an unhurried, park-like atmosphere quite different from the busier plazas around the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The complex today forms a combined heritage park alongside the Xi'an Museum, a modern building adjoining the temple grounds that houses a well-curated, free collection covering the city's history from prehistoric settlement through the Han and Tang dynasties to the present, including scale models of Tang-dynasty Chang'an and Buddhist statuary recovered from sites around the city. General admission to the temple grounds and museum is free but capped at a limited number of daily reservations, released online and claimed quickly on weekends; visitors who miss the free quota can still pay a modest fee to enter the pagoda garden area, with climbing the pagoda itself requiring an additional ticket. A visit covering both the pagoda grounds and the museum typically takes 1.5 to 2 hours, and because the site draws noticeably fewer visitors than Xi'an's headline attractions, it offers a quieter, more contemplative alternative for those who have already visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The site is closed on Tuesdays for routine maintenance, a schedule worth checking before planning a visit.