Built by Emperor ChengZu in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty, the Temple of Heaven was entered into the world cultural heritage list in 1998. It is in the southern part of Beijing is China's largest existing ancient complex which was originally for Ming and Qing (1368 A.D. - 1911 A.D.) emperors to sacrifice and worship the heaven. Occupying an area of 273 hectares, it is three times the area of the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven is enclosed with a long wall. The northern part within the wall is semicircular symbolizing the heavens and the southern part is square symbolizing the earth. The northern part is higher than the southern part. This design illustrates much that the heaven is high and the earth is low and the design reflected an ancient Chinese thought of 'The heaven is round and the earth is square'.

The Temple is divided by two enclosed walls and stretches 1,700 m from east to west and 1,600 m from north to south. The main buildings of the Temple lie at the south and north ends of the middle axis line of the inner part. The most magnificent buildings are The Circular Mound Altar, Imperial Vault of Heaven and Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest from south to north. Also, there are some additional buildings like Three Echo Stones and Echo Wall.Almost all of the buildings are connected by a wide bridge called Vermilion Steps Bridge also called Sacred Way.

The Circular Mound Altar has three layered terraces with white marble. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 A.D. - 1911 A.D.), the emperors sacrificed to Heaven on the day of the Winter Solstice every year. This ceremony was to thank Heaven and pray everything would be good in the future. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is a big palace with round roof and three layers of eaves. Inside the Hall are 28 huge posts. The four posts along the inner circle represent four seasons-spring, summer, autumn and winter; the 12 posts along the middle circle represent the 12 months; and 12 posts along the outer circle represent 12 Shichen which means counting time in ancient China and one Shichen in the past equaled two hours and a whole day was divided into 12 Shichens. The roof is covered with black, yellow and green colored glaze representing the heavens, the earth and everything on earth. The Hall has a base named Altar for Grain Prayers which is made of three layers of white marble and has a height of six meters.

Imperial Vault of Heaven is one of the three principal buildings . the Vault is like a blue umbrella with gold head when you look at it from far away. The structure of it is much like the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, but smaller in size. The structure was made of bricks and timber. The Vault was used to place memorial tablets of Gods. White marble railings surround the vault.

The Altar of Prayer is 38 meters in height and 30 meters in diameter, stands on a round foundation built with three levels of marble stones.

The Vermilion(Danbi) Steps Bridge is the main road in the Temple of Heaven and connects the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest with the Imperial Vault of Heaven. It's 360 m long and 29.4 m wide and ascends from one meter high in the south to three meters high at the northern end. The stepwise height of the bridge suggests two meanings: it represents the course of the emperor "stepping upward toward heaven"; which also shows that the road from earth to heaven is long. The south end of the Bridge is lower than its north end. The emperors in the past believed that they could go to heaven through this Bridge, which is why this bridge is also called Sacred Way.

Three Echo Stones is outside of the gate of the Imperial Vault of Heaven. If you speak facing the Vault while standing on the first stone, you will hear one echo; standing on the second and then the third stone, you will hear two and three echoes respectively.

Echo Wall is due to its special feature makes a magical acoustic effect, whispering to the opposite sides of the enclosure, two people can hear each other remarkable clearly.