Discover Xi'an
Bell Tower & Drum Tower
钟楼・鼓楼
Two Ming-dynasty timber towers at the exact centre of the walled city, built in 1380s to mark dawn and dusk for Chang'an. Lit up at night from the traffic roundabout, the Bell Tower is the postcard image of modern Xi'an.
The story
What makes this place special
Two Ming timber towers standing a few hundred metres apart at the centre of the walled city, on the crossing of its main axes. The Bell Tower was completed in 1384, in the seventeenth year of the Hongwu reign, originally about a kilometre away at Yingxiang Temple on Guangji Street; in 1582 the authorities had it moved to its present position, rebuilding the pedestal and re-using much of the original timber frame. It stands around 36m from the ground, on a stone base 8.6m high and about 35.5m square. Its original bell, the Jingyun bell cast in 711 under the Tang, 247cm tall and 6,500kg, was moved to the Stele Forest museum in 1953; the replica now hanging at the north-west corner of the base was installed on 30 January 1997. The Drum Tower nearby, originally paired with it for timekeeping, faces it across the junction.
What you’ll discover
Both towers are reached by stairs up through their stone bases and both have open galleries you can walk round - the Bell Tower looks straight down the four main streets of the Ming city, and the Drum Tower looks west into the Muslim Quarter's lanes. Inside, the Bell Tower has the replica Jingyun bell and displays of bells and furniture; the Drum Tower has a long row of large drums and gives short drumming performances through the day. Both are now traffic islands, floodlit at night, and the view of them lit from the Bell Tower underpass is what most visitors remember.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- You reach both towers through the circular pedestrian underpass, not across the road - the original arched passages through the Bell Tower's base were closed to traffic long ago and there is no surface crossing.
- Buy the combined two-tower ticket. They are 200m apart, the combined ticket is cheaper than two singles, and seeing one without the other misses the point of a paired bell-and-drum timekeeping system.
- Time the Drum Tower for a drumming performance; the schedule is posted at the ticket desk and outside them the upper floor is a room of drums.
- The Drum Tower's west side is the top of Beiyuanmen, the Muslim Quarter food street - go up the tower first for the overhead view of the lanes, then walk down into them to eat.
- At night both towers are floodlit and the underpass is full of buskers and crowds; the daytime visit is for the galleries and the view, the night visit is for the lighting. They are different outings.
- The Bell Tower's gallery is small and the stairs are two-way, so a busy afternoon means queuing on the staircase. Early morning is much better.
When to come
Early morning for the climbs and the clear view down the four streets; after dark for the floodlighting. Spring and autumn. The galleries are exposed, so very hot in July and August and windy in winter.
Getting around
Neither tower can be climbed without stairs: access is by stone flights up through the base, and there are no lifts. The underpass that gets you to them is reached by its own steps and ramps of varying quality, and the towers stand in the middle of a busy multi-lane junction with no surface crossing, so a wheelchair user may struggle even to reach the base. There is nothing to see at ground level inside. If stairs are out, view both from the street, ideally lit at night.
Worth knowing before you go
Buy the ¥50 combined ticket rather than two singles, and reach the Bell Tower via the pedestrian underpass from the metro - there is no surface crossing to the island it sits on.
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