What is the oldest tree in Beijing?
Beijing's oldest tree, by tradition, is the Tang Scholar Tree in Beihai Park, given an age of roughly 1,200 years. The figure comes from a long-repeated register entry rather than a fresh count, and the tree stands beside the Huafangzhai pavilion in the park's northwest, a spot the Qianlong Emperor liked well enough to build a pavilion specifically for looking at it.
Six trees make this list, all inside temples and imperial parks rather than free-standing on a street. Beihai Park's Tang Scholar Tree, traditionally dated to around 1,200 years, is the oldest by the tradition each of these trees carries, and it earned an emperor's own pavilion, built by Qianlong specifically so he could sit and look at it. The Seven Liao Cypresses at Zhongshan Park run it close, said to predate the Ming altar built around them in 1420 by several centuries, which would put them past a thousand years, though that is a temple-succession story rather than a dated finding. Most of these figures work the same way: a register entry, repeated for decades, standing in for a measurement nobody has actually taken, since none of Beijing's own listings carry a real dating method. What is firmer is the paperwork: the city graded these trees by class and named ten of them ancient tree kings in 2018, and five of the six here made that shortlist. Entry is free at Bolin Temple; the rest sit behind a park or garden ticket, usually a few yuan.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.