Datong Wooden Pagoda

Situated in western Yingxian County, the tower is 70 kilometers away from Datong.

It is shaped in an octagon and is 67.13 meters high and 30 meters in diameter at the bottom. A Liao dynasty structure, it was built in 1056. The wooden tower was completely made of wood without a single nail used.

The tower offers valuable information for the research of calligraphic arts and the construction of the wooden tower.The real name of the Wooden Pagoda in Yingxian County, located in the Fogong (Buddha´s Palace) Temple in the northwestern corner of Yingxian County, is the Sakyamuni Pagoda.

Since it was built completely of timber, it has been well known as the Wooden Pagoda of Yingxian County. After several renovations throughout the dynasties, except for the wooden tower of the Liao Dynasty, other structures, like the Bell and Drum Tower and the Daxiong Palace, were all rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).During the repair work in 1974, a number of important and valuable cultural relics were found in the pagoda, including a picture of medicinal herbs and Buddhist scriptures, all belonging to the Liao Dynasty. Scripture scrolls include both hand-written and block-printed ones; some of them are more than thirty meters long when spread out and date back to as early as 990´1003 or 1071.

Features
The wooden pagoda is one of the planet´s oldest wooden buildings. Not a single nail was used in the construction of the nine-storey, 67m-high structure, which has thus far survived seven major earthquakes.

They are regarded as rare treasures both at home and abroad, providing important data not only for the collating of Buddhist scriptures, but also for the study of the development of printing technology in China.