Xuanwu Mountain in Jieshi County

With land coverage of about 15 hectares, Xuanwu Mountain is a key cultural relic protection unit in Guangdong Province. Used to be called Xuanwu Temple, Yuanshan Temple was first built in the first year of Jianyan Period of South Song Dynasty (1127 AD) and has a history of more than 870 years by now. Honoring “the Xuanwu God of Heaven in the North End”, this temple came down in one continuous line with the Ancestral Palace on Wudang Mountain and the Ancestral Temple on the Buddhist Mountain in Hubei Province. The Buddhist Statues of Sakyamuni, Kwan-yin, Miller Buddha and Patriarch Bodhidharma were also honored in this temple. In the 22^nd year of Hongwu Period of Ming Dynasty (1389AD), defense is built here and a city was built later. As Xuanwu Mountain is endowed with seven huge stones with strange shapes which are arranged in the shape of the Little Dipper on the North Pole, it is named as Xuanwu Temple because Xuanwu is the god of North Pole. By Wanli Period of Ming Dynasty, a large scale expansion was made on the temple (the present scale) and it was renamed as Xuanshan Temple. At present, service establishments like Xuanwu Mountain Hotel, Dragon Spring Hotel, Stone Tablet Gulf Hotel, Xuanwu Mountain Vegetarian Hotel and cafeteria are built in Xuanwu Mountain Tourist Zone. In recent years, historic cultural relic museum and cultural industrial arts gallery are built and in the garden residential zone on the back hill are built scenic spots like “the surviving funs of Nanchang ”, “Illusionary Dreamland” and “the Quiet Bamboo Garden on Yuan Mountain” and so on.