Located on the east side of Andingmen Outer Street, the Temple of Earth (Ditan Park) is adjacent to the north second Ring Road, and faces the Yonghe Lamasery across a river. With long history and solemn style, it is a famous imperial garden based on altar and temple.
The Temple of Earth, also called Square Water Altar (Fangzetan), was first built f in the 9th year under the reign of Jia Jing of the Ming Dynasty (1530), and rebuilt and repaired several times in the Qing Dynasty, where the emperors of Ming and Qing dynasties performed the ceremony of offering sacrifice to Earth. In 1925, it was taken as a park named Jingzhao, and renamed as Citizen Park in 1929. Now, it's called Ditan Park. Existing ancient buildings in the Temple of Earth include W. Square Water Altar (Fangzetan), Earth God Worship House (Huangqishi), Slaughter Pavilion (Zaishengting), Divine Warehouse (Shenku), etc. The Square Water Altar, in north, also called Worship Platform, is a two-floor white marble square platform surrounded by a water pool, where emperors offered sacrifice to God of the Earth. For both overall and local designs, the buildings are designed in accordance with Chinese traditional ideology, i.e. "Heaven is round; Earth is square", "Heaven is blue; Earth is yellow", "Heaven is in south; Earth is in north" as well as the concepts of "dragon and phoenix" and "heaven and earth".