Shaanxi · The Palace That Is Now a Lawn
Daming Palace (大明宫)
For most of the Tang this was where the empire was run. It was levelled at the end of the dynasty and what is left is foundations, laid out as a park the size of a district.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | The excavated site of the main Tang palace complex, presented as an archaeological park with a museum and one reconstructed building |
|---|---|
| Where | North-east of the old walled city of Xi’an, outside the Ming wall |
| When it was used | From 663 until the end of the Tang. The complex was destroyed in 904 when Chang’an was dismantled and the court moved to Luoyang |
| How big | Commonly published as about 3.2 square kilometres, which is several times the area of the Forbidden City. Any single figure depends on where the boundary is drawn |
| What stands | Rammed-earth foundation platforms, a modern hall built over the Danfeng Gate foundations, a museum and a model hall. No Tang buildings |
| Booking | Ticketed. The outer park areas are free. Buy the museum and hall ticket at the gate |
| Time needed | Two hours with the museum. Longer if you walk the full axis |
| Terrain | Flat, open and very exposed. Carts run the length of the site |
Why Go
Reading a Site With Nothing On It
1. What was here
Daming Palace was the working seat of the Tang court for most of the dynasty. Audiences, administration and the reception of foreign embassies happened here, on an axis running north from the Danfeng Gate through Hanyuan Hall and on into the residential quarters and the Taiye lake behind them. The scale was the point: the approach to Hanyuan Hall was designed so that anyone coming to it arrived already impressed.
Chang’an at that time was the destination for embassies, students and monks from Japan, Korea, Central Asia and further west, and this is where they were received. The palace plans that Japanese missions took home shaped the layout of the palaces at Nara and then at Kyoto, so anyone who has walked those sites has seen a descendant of this ground plan.
2. What is here
Foundations. The platforms of the main halls survive as rammed-earth masses, some of them several metres high and hundreds of metres across, laid out on the original axis with the ground between them grassed or paved. The Danfeng Gate foundations are covered by a modern protective hall in a broadly Tang form, which is the one full-size structure on the site.
Excavation began in the 1950s and has continued since. The park was opened in 2010, after the dense low-rise housing that had covered much of the site was cleared. The museum holds what came out of the ground and a model of the complex, and the model is the thing to look at before walking out onto the site rather than after.
The catch. This is a field of foundations. If you arrive expecting palace buildings you will walk for an hour across lawns and leave annoyed. Go to the model in the museum first, give the scale a few minutes to register, and the empty ground outside becomes the most interesting thing in Xi’an. Skip that step and it is a park.
Orientation
Museum First, Then the Axis
The entrance is at the southern end near the Danfeng Gate hall. The museum and the model hall are close to it, and the site runs north from there along the old axis for well over a kilometre to the lake. Electric carts run the length; walking it is possible and long.
Do the model first. It is the only thing on site that shows what the ground you are about to cross used to carry, and every foundation platform outside is legible afterwards in a way it is not before.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
No shade, at all
The site is open ground by design and there is very little cover. Hat, water, and avoid the middle of a summer day.
Take the cart one way
Riding north to the lake and walking back means you see the axis in the direction it was meant to be approached from, which is the more informative direction.
It is free at the edges
Much of the parkland is open without a ticket and is used by local residents. The ticket covers the museum, the model hall and the Danfeng Gate building.
Pair it with the wall
Daming Palace is outside the Ming wall and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda is outside it the other way. Doing the wall and then this makes the relationship between Tang and Ming Xi’an clear.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| April to May | Green, mild, and the open ground is pleasant to cross | Dust and haze are common in spring |
| September to October | The clearest air of the year and comfortable walking on an exposed site | The first week of October is the national holiday |
| June to August | Long evenings, and the site stays open late enough to use them | Hot, bright and shadeless. Midday here is genuinely unpleasant |
| November to March | Empty, and the earth platforms read more clearly without foliage | Cold and very exposed. Wind crosses the site with nothing to stop it |
Context
Why Nothing Is Left
Tang palaces were timber on rammed-earth platforms. Timber burns, and it is also worth taking away. When Chang’an was dismantled in 904 the buildings were stripped and the materials floated down to Luoyang, which is why the destruction was thorough in a way that stone construction is not.
What survives of any Tang palace anywhere is therefore the earth: platforms, wall lines, drains and post holes. The Japanese sites at Nara preserve the same kind of evidence, and the few Tang timber buildings that remain in China are small remote temple halls in Shanxi, not palaces.
The site was farmland and then dense housing through the twentieth century, which protected the archaeology by burying it. Excavation from the 1950s established the plan; clearance and the park followed in the 2000s. The result is one of the larger urban archaeological parks anywhere, sitting inside a working city of several million people.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · 6 km south
Xi’an City Wall and Stele Forest (城墙 · 碑林)
The complete Ming wall around the old city, rideable in ninety minutes, and the stone inscription museum inside it.
Spot · 35 km east
Huaqing Palace (华清池)
The Tang hot spring palace at the foot of Li Mountain, with the bathing pools excavated in 1982.
Spot · 40 km east
Terracotta Army (秦始皇兵马俑)
The Qin burial army, eight centuries older than anything on this site.
Where to Base
Xi’an (西安)
Daming Palace is in the northern part of the modern city, outside the Ming wall and about twenty minutes from it by metro or taxi. It is the Tang layer, and the Tang layer is scattered across the whole municipality rather than concentrated in the old city.
A day built as wall, then Daming Palace, then the Big Wild Goose Pagoda covers the sequence from Ming back to Tang in the right order and does not require leaving the city.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
Museum · 45 min
The model, before anything else
A full model of the complex at scale. It is the only thing that makes the ground outside legible, and doing it afterwards wastes the visit.
On site · 1 hr
Walk the axis
South to north along the line the court was approached on, past the hall platforms to the lake at the back.
Guided · half day
Tang Chang’an, reconstructed on the ground
What stood where, how the embassies were received, and how this plan reached Nara and Kyoto. The kind of site that needs a person rather than a sign.
Worth two hours if you go to the model first, and worth very little if you do not. This is the most important Tang site in Xi’an and the least rewarding to look at, which is an unusual combination and worth knowing before you buy the ticket. Pair it with the city wall on the same day.
Plan a Tang Xi’an Route
Tell us your dates and what you are after, and our local team will build the route: the Daming Palace model and the axis with someone who can rebuild it for you, the Ming wall by bicycle, and the Tang sites south of the old city.