Few Chinese cities carry as much history as Luoyang. On the banks of the Luo River, near the great Yellow River, this ancient capital was the political and cultural heart of China for more than a thousand years: thirteen dynasties made it the seat of their court, and much of the country's history passed through its streets. It was here that Buddhism first took root on Chinese soil, where art and poetry flourished, and where the peony became the imperial flower above all others. Today, beneath a modern industrial city, lies one of the greatest concentrations of history in all of Asia.
Luoyang's great treasure is the Longmen Grottoes: thousands of Buddhas and bodhisattvas carved into the cliffs along the river, from tiny figures to the colossal Vairocana Buddha, one of the most imposing sculptures in China. A few kilometres away, the White Horse Temple marks the birthplace of Chinese Buddhism, and a little further off, in the mountains, the legendary Shaolin Temple is still the cradle of kung fu and a mecca for martial arts. And in spring the whole city is covered in blooming peonies, a sight that draws huge crowds.
This guide covers the essentials of Luoyang with a practical eye: how to plan your visit to the Longmen Grottoes and the White Horse Temple, how to get to the Shaolin Temple, when to see the peonies and how to get around the city. Less glamorous than other Chinese cities but incredibly rich in history, Luoyang is a fascinating stop on a route through the ancient capitals of northern China, ideally combined with nearby Xi'an.
Luoyang is one of China's 'four great ancient capitals', with a history going back more than three thousand years. Set in the Luo River valley near the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilisation, it was the capital of thirteen dynasties over more than a millennium, from the Eastern Zhou (8th century BC) through the Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern Wei and Tang, among others. Under the Eastern Han, in the 1st century AD, Buddhism reached Luoyang and the White Horse Temple was founded, considered the first Buddhist temple in China. When the Northern Wei moved their capital here from Datong in the late 5th century, work began on the Longmen Grottoes, which would continue for centuries, above all under the Tang. In that period Luoyang was one of the largest cities in the world, and Empress Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China with the title of empress, made it her capital. After the decline of the Tang, Luoyang lost its imperial rank and became a provincial city, though it kept its enormous heritage. Today it is an important industrial centre that takes pride in its glorious past. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The historic heart of the country, the cradle of civilisation on the banks of the Yellow River: the imperial capitals, the Great Wall, the Buddhist grottoes and the Ming walled city of Pingyao.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Luoyang stands in a place the ancient Chinese saw, quite literally, as the centre of the world. It sits on the fertile plain where the Luo River approaches the great Yellow River, the 'mother river' of Chinese civilisation, and the region was one of the cradles of Han culture. According to historical tradition, some of the earliest Chinese dynasties were based here. Close by lies the Erlitou site, which many archaeologists link to the legendary Xia dynasty, the first in Chinese history, from about three and a half thousand years ago.
Luoyang's position was exceptional, both geographically and symbolically. Mountains and strategic passes protected it, it had fertile land and plenty of water, and it was thought to lie at the point where the country's energies came together. That's why the ancients called it 'the centre under heaven'. In Chinese cosmology it was the ideal place for the capital of an empire that saw itself as the 'Middle Kingdom', which is what China's name in Chinese, Zhongguo, means.
Being central and auspicious shaped its destiny. Over more than a thousand years, thirteen dynasties chose Luoyang as the seat of their court. That makes it one of China's 'four great ancient capitals', along with Xi'an, Nanjing and Beijing. Few cities in the world can claim to have been the political heart of such a vast and long-lasting civilisation for so long and under so many dynasties.
Luoyang's first great moment as a capital came in 770 BC. After losing its western capital, the Zhou dynasty moved its court east to the Luoyang area, which began the period known as the Eastern Zhou. Royal Zhou authority gradually weakened, and China split into rival states during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Even so, Luoyang remained the symbolic capital and ritual centre of the Chinese world. This era of intellectual ferment was when the great schools of thought flourished, from Confucianism to Taoism.
After the first Qin emperor unified China and the Han dynasty came to power, Luoyang took on a central role again. In AD 25 the Han dynasty was restored after a period of usurpation, and the emperor set up his capital in Luoyang. This began the era known as the Eastern or Later Han. For almost two centuries Luoyang was the capital of one of the largest empires of the ancient world. It existed at the same time as the Roman Empire, was comparable to it, and traded with it along the Silk Road.
In this period, in the 1st century AD, something of enormous importance for the history of China and Asia happened: Buddhism arrived. According to tradition, Emperor Ming had a dream and then sent envoys to the west, who came back with Buddhist monks and scriptures. In 68 the White Horse Temple was founded on the outskirts of Luoyang, and it is considered the first Buddhist temple in China. From here the new religion from India began to spread across the country, and it changed Chinese spirituality, art and culture for good.
After the fall of the Han, China went through centuries of division and war. In the north, dynasties of nomadic origin took power. One of them was the Northern Wei, founded by the Tuoba, who had made Datong their capital and sponsored the great Yungang Grottoes there. In 494, at the end of the 5th century, Emperor Xiaowen made a far-reaching decision. He moved the Wei capital from Datong to Luoyang, in the heart of historical China, as part of an ambitious sinicisation policy meant to bring the nomadic rulers into Chinese culture.
Buddhist energy arrived along with the court. This is when one of the great artistic projects in Chinese history began: carving the Longmen Grottoes into the limestone cliffs along the Yi River, south of the city. Artists who had worked at Yungang carried on here, carving Buddhas, bodhisattvas and sacred scenes into the rock. Over the following centuries, and especially under the Tang dynasty, thousands of caves and niches were cut. They hold around 100,000 images, in a style that became steadily more Chinese and more refined.
The Northern Wei rebuilt Luoyang on a monumental scale. It became one of the largest cities in the world at the time, with a huge population, hundreds of Buddhist monasteries and a lively cultural life. That golden age was short. Over the following decades, infighting and rebellions brought down the dynasty and left Luoyang in a period of destruction and decline. The Longmen Grottoes remained as a lasting record of that age. They kept growing under later dynasties and became one of China's three great collections of Buddhist rock art.
Luoyang reached its greatest splendour under the Sui and Tang dynasties, between the 6th and 10th centuries, the golden age of imperial China. At the start of the 7th century the Sui dynasty rebuilt the city on a grand scale and made it the 'eastern capital'. The Grand Canal, a gigantic waterway linking northern and southern China, connected it to the rest of the empire. Under the Tang dynasty Luoyang reached its peak. It was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world, with more than a million people, markets full of goods from all over Asia, monasteries, palaces and a dazzling cultural life.
The figure most linked to Tang Luoyang is Empress Wu Zetian, a remarkable character. She is the only woman in Chinese history to have ruled as empress in her own right, not as regent or consort. In the late 7th century she effectively moved the centre of power to Luoyang, made it her capital and ruled the empire from here with a firm hand. According to tradition, she sponsored the carving of the colossal Vairocana Buddha at Longmen, whose calm face is said to be modelled on her own. She also had the city's great ceremonial palaces built, such as the Mingtang.
Wu Zetian is also tied to the famous legend of the peonies. The story goes that she was furious when the flower ignored her order to bloom in the middle of winter. She banished it from the capital, Chang'an, to Luoyang, where it bloomed more beautifully than ever. Ever since, the peony has been the city's emblem flower. After the empress's death and the long Tang reign, the dynasty fell into crisis in the 8th century with the devastating An Lushan Rebellion. Luoyang was looted and destroyed, and it took the city a long time to recover. When the Tang fell at the start of the 10th century, the city lost its standing as a great imperial capital for good.
After the fall of the Tang dynasty, Luoyang lost its rank as a great capital and went into a long decline. Under the Northern Song dynasty (10th-12th centuries) it was still an important and refined city, famous for its gardens and peonies. But the empire's centre of gravity moved east and south, and later north to Beijing. In the centuries that followed, under the Ming and Qing dynasties, Luoyang became a provincial city. It looked after a glorious heritage but sat far from the big events of the day.
The 20th century brought deep changes. Like much of China, Luoyang lived through the instability of the warlord era, the Japanese invasion and the civil war. After the People's Republic was founded in 1949, the city was picked as one of the major centres of socialist industrialisation. Large factories making tractors, heavy machinery and bearings were set up here with Soviet help. Luoyang became a significant industrial city, with whole neighbourhoods built around the factories. This working-class, industrial side defined 20th-century Luoyang, very different from its imperial image.
In recent decades, with China's economic boom and growing interest in heritage, Luoyang has been reclaiming its extraordinary history. The Longmen Grottoes, made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, have been restored and showcased, along with the White Horse Temple and other sites. Reconstructions of the great palaces of the Sui-Tang city, such as the Mingtang and the Tiantang, have gone up. Every spring the Peony Festival draws millions of visitors. Today Luoyang is a city of more than two million people that combines its industrial past with cultural tourism. It is determined to win back its rightful place as one of China's great historical capitals.
