The Temple of Confucius in Beijing is the second largest Confucian Temple in China, after the one in Confucius’s hometown of Qufu. This temple was built in 1302, covering 22,000 square meters.

In ancient China, the Confucius Temple served as a place where the people paid homage to Confucius. This temple in Beijing includes four courtyards aligned along a central axis from south to north. Inside the temple, there are 198 stone tablets with the names of 51,624 scholars who had passed the Imperial Exam during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

Beijing Confucius Temple is famous for its stone carvings, for example, the carving of two flying dragons playing with a pearl among the clouds, which is believed to be used only in the imperial palaces because the dragon stands for the emperor in ancient China. The main buildings were decorated with yellow glazed tiles, a symbol of the highest construction standards in ancient society. From those, it is easy to imagine the importance of this temple in the feudal society of China.