Longmen Grottoes
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
South of the old capital of Luoyang in Henan province, China, limestone cliffs face each other across the Yi River. After Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei moved his capital from Datong to Luoyang, Buddhist caves began to be cut here in 493. The first, Guyang cave, is credited to Xiaowen, and his successor Xuanwu cut the three Binyang caves in memory of his parents.
Work peaked under the Tang, when about 60 per cent of the caves were made, between 626 and 755. Fengxian cave, with its colossal figures, was completed in 675 under Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian. In Yaofang cave, 140 inscriptions record treatments for illnesses.
More than 2,300 caves and niches line about a kilometre of cliff, with almost 110,000 Buddhist statues and 2,800 inscriptions. Carving declined under the Northern Song. The grottoes were inscribed in 2000 for their art of the Northern Wei and Tang.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).