Roughly 2,600 to 3,200 years old.
Photo: 卢传雄 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Ancient trees in China
China's oldest trees cluster around two kinds of ground: imperial temples and religious mountains. We map 32 trees in 6 cities here. The oldest of them is King Cypress in Nyingchi, at roughly 2,600 to 3,200 years (sources disagree).
Beijing graded its ancient trees by class under the Qing and named ten "ancient tree kings" in 2018, five of which stand here, among them cypresses planted for state altars and a ginkgo that queues photographers every November. Further west, on the Tibetan plateau's edge, Bon tradition holds a giant cypress outside Nyingchi as the life tree of the religion's own founder, at up to 3,200 years the oldest tree this site maps anywhere. A ginkgo at Shaolin Temple carries a monks-training legend in the holes through its trunk, and a banyan on the Jinbao River near Yangshuo was a film location decades before anyone measured its age. Hong Kong's banyans are civic rather than sacred, rooted into a colonial trading port's walls and stairs.
Every place we map in China
1
Hong Kong21 trees · oldest 400 years2
Beijing7 trees · oldest 1,200 years3Dengfeng1 tree · oldest 1,500 years4Nanjing1 tree · oldest 1,500 years5Nyingchi1 tree · oldest 2,600-3,200 years6Yangshuo1 tree · oldest 1,400 years
Hong Kong21 trees · oldest 400 years2Beijing7 trees · oldest 1,200 years3Dengfeng1 tree · oldest 1,500 years4Nanjing1 tree · oldest 1,500 years5Nyingchi1 tree · oldest 2,600-3,200 years6Yangshuo1 tree · oldest 1,400 years13 species grow in China
Figs and mulberries Indian Laurel Fig 10 · Rubber Fig 2 · Chinese Banyan 1 · Cunningham's Fig / White Fig 1
Conifers Ginkgo 2 · Tibetan Cypress 1
More broadleaf trees Camphor Tree 5 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 3 · Chinese Arborvitae 2 · Chinese Juniper 2 · Pink Shower Tree 1 · Red Silk-Cotton Tree 1 · Sausage Tree 1
The 10 oldest trees we map in China
Roughly 1,450 to 1,550 years old.
Autumn colour
Roughly 1,300 to 1,700 years old.
Roughly 1,300 to 1,500 years old.
Roughly 1,100 to 1,300 years old.
Roughly 900 to 1,100 years old.
Autumn colour
Roughly 550 to 620 years old.
Roughly 500 to 620 years old.
Roughly 400 to 500 years old.
Roughly 380 to 450 years old.
Trees from China also appear in Autumn Worth the Trip · The Trees the World Has Written About · The Tallest Trees We Have Measured. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.