The Ginkgos of the Five Pagoda Temple

Two female ginkgos stand either side of the Diamond Throne pagoda, and every November people queue to photograph them. A 2026 city paper feature described visitors waiting their turn at the best spots while the gold came down on the carved stone. The pair went in when the temple, then called Zhenjue, was built in the Yongle era of the Ming dynasty, which gives them roughly six hundred years. They are not identical. The east tree stands about 17 metres; the west one reaches about 20 and is the stouter, with a trunk near five metres round. The Qing poet Hong Liangji wrote a line about the pair that still reads accurately: two trees stand strange by Wuta's gate. That is six centuries of somebody bothering to write them down. The pagoda between them gives the place its common name, five stone spires on one carved base, and the site now doubles as the Beijing Stone Carving Art Museum. Twenty yuan gets you in, free for the first two hundred visitors each Wednesday, closed Mondays. Our pin marks the temple grounds rather than the trees, which stand at the pagoda itself. In the second half of November that hardly matters. The trees are the loudest thing on the site, and the cameras will show you where to stand.