Luoyang

Ancient capital of 13 dynasties, on the Luo River. Longmen Grottoes (UNESCO), White Horse Temple (the first Buddhist temple in China), and the Peony Festival in April.

Luoyang is an ancient city on the Luo River in central Henan, serving as the capital of thirteen dynasties over a cumulative period exceeding 800 years — a record matched only by Xi'an among Chinese cities. Its history spans the founding of the Zhou dynasty's Eastern Capital to the imperial court of the Tang, making it one of the foundational sites of Chinese civilisation. The modern city is a busy industrial and administrative centre, but the surrounding area contains sites of extraordinary depth.

The Longmen Grottoes, 13 kilometres south along the Yi River, are one of the three great Buddhist cave complexes in China alongside Yungang and Dunhuang. Carved between the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties (5th to 9th centuries), the site contains more than 2,300 caves, 2,800 inscribed stele, and over 100,000 Buddhist figures carved from the limestone cliffs on both sides of the river. The largest image is the Vairocana Buddha in the Fengxian Temple Grotto: 17.14 metres tall, commissioned by Empress Wu Zetian in 675 CE and widely considered one of the masterworks of Tang Buddhist sculpture. The scale and diversity of the carvings — from tiny niches with single figures to vast multi-figure cave temples — reward several hours of exploration.

The White Horse Temple, 12 kilometres east of the city, is traditionally regarded as the first Buddhist temple in China, founded in 68 CE when Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty sent envoys to India to bring back Buddhist teachings. Two Indian monks returned with sutras loaded on white horses, hence the name. The current temple complex is largely Ming and later in construction, but the site maintains continuous active Buddhist practice. A modern international monastery complex adjacent to the historic core includes temples built in Indian, Burmese, and Thai architectural styles, contributed by respective governments.

Luoyang is also the centre of the Chinese tree peony (mudan) tradition. The peony, regarded as the 'king of flowers' in Chinese aesthetics, was cultivated in Luoyang during the Tang and Song dynasties when the city was a centre of imperial wealth. The Luoyang Peony Festival in April draws enormous crowds to the city's many peony gardens, with over five hundred varieties cultivated in a range of colours. This is peak crowd season; those who prefer to visit the Longmen Grottoes in relative quiet should come at another time.

The Luoyang Museum holds extensive collections of Shang, Zhou, Han, and Tang period artefacts excavated from the surrounding area — an introduction to the depth of what lies underneath the Luoyang basin.