The Hanging Temple, also Hanging Monastery or Xuankong Temple built into a cliff (75 m or 246 ft above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi province, China. The closest city is Datong, 64.23 kilometers to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

Xuankong Temple

The structure is kept in place with oak crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure was hidden inside the bedrock.Due to the monastery is located in the small canyon basin, and the body of the building is hanging in the middle of the cliffs, which is under the summit prominent part, protecting the temple from rain erosion and sunlight. Coupled with the repair of the dynasties, the color tattoo in the temple is relatively well preserved. On December 2010, it was listed in the “Time Magazine" as the world's top ten most odd dangerous buildings.

The Hanging Temple China

According to the history of Shangshen Mountain, construction of the original temple was conducted by only one man, a monk named Liao Ran. Over more than 1,600 years, many repairs and extensions have led to its present day scale.This temple is over 50 meters tall.