Mount Tai Stone Steps and Summit Temples (泰山)

Mount Tai, or Taishan, rises to about 1,545 metres above Tai'an in Shandong, China, and is the foremost of the Five Great Mountains of Chinese tradition. Emperors climbed it to perform the Feng Shan rites of sacrifice to heaven and earth, with the first recorded performance attributed to Qin Shi Huang in 219 BC, followed by Han Wudi and later rulers, and by the Qing emperors Kangxi and Qianlong. Confucius is also said to have climbed it. The main historical route begins near Dai Temple and follows the Central Route, a stone staircase of about 6,660 steps that ascends through three sections known as the First Gate to Heaven, the Middle Gate to Heaven and the South Gate to Heaven. Along the way, visitors pass temples, pavilions and archways such as the Red Gate Palace, the Doumu Palace, the Five Pines Pavilion, and the Fifteen Bends. The route is lined with about 1,800 inscriptions and steles, cut into rock faces and standing beside the path, ranging from imperial edicts to poems by scholars. At the summit stand the Azure Clouds Temple, dedicated to a goddess, the Jade Emperor Temple, and the Sun Viewing Peak, a traditional place to watch sunrise. Mount Tai was inscribed by UNESCO in 1987 as a mixed cultural and natural site, one of the first in China. The site is not a museum but a linear open-air record of two thousand years of pilgrimage, and its curatorial logic is the ascent itself, from lower ritual halls to the sky-facing summit. Buildings on the mountain have been rebuilt many times after fires, and today they are conserved under the scenic-area administration with paths and stonework maintained. Many visitors climb on foot in five to seven hours, while cable cars run on the upper stretches for those who prefer to shorten the walk.