Things to Do in Beijing, China: Walking Guide

Beijing is China’s capital, a city where imperial heritage meets modern architecture and vibrant hutong lanes. It offers visitors a chance to explore vast palaces, ancient temples, and contemporary art districts, all within a sprawling metropolis. Neywo provides a free audio guide for Beijing with 384 narrated places to help you discover the city at your own pace.

Explore Beijing’s highlights

Summer Palace

The Summer Palace, or Yihe Garden, stretches over 297 hectares, three‑quarters of which is water. Kunming Lake, entirely man‑made, dominates the landscape; the soil excavated to create it formed Longevity Hill, an artificial rise about 60 metres high. The front of the hill is lined with halls and pavilions, while the back side remains quieter and more natural. Across the grounds you’ll find more than 3,000 ancient Chinese buildings—palaces, temples, halls, pavilions and bridges—dating back to the Qing dynasty, first built under the Qianlong Emperor and later rebuilt during the Guangxu era.

Zhoukoudian site

Located in Fangshan District roughly 50 kilometres southwest of the city centre, Zhoukoudian is an archaeological complex of caves on Dragon Bone Hill. Johan Gunnar Andersson first identified the site in 1921; Otto Zdansky’s excavations in 1921 and 1923 uncovered two human teeth later recognised as belonging to Peking Man (Homo erectus). The caves have yielded remains of about 45 individuals, animal bones, stone tools and fossils of the giant short‑faced hyena. The site was used again during the Upper Palaeolithic, showing a long history of human occupation.

Temple of Heaven

Established in 1420 by the Ming Yongle Emperor, the Temple of Heaven was originally called the Temple of Heaven and Earth before becoming a dedicated complex for imperial ceremonies to Heaven. Covering about 273 hectares—roughly four times the size of the Forbidden City—it is the largest surviving ancient sacrificial architectural complex in China. Its layout reflects principles of mechanics, acoustics and geometry, and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests exemplifies the site’s precise design and acoustic properties.

Mausoleum of Mao Zedong

On the southern side of Tiananmen Square stands the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, commonly known as the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Built after Mao’s death on 9 September 1976, its foundation stone was laid on 24 November 1976 and the hall opened to the public on the first anniversary of his death, 9 September 1977. The memorial occupies the former site of the Gate of China, the southern main gate of the Imperial City during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre

Tiananmen Square was the focal point of the 1989 pro‑democracy movement that began in April after the death of reform‑minded leader Hu Yaobang. Student and worker demonstrators gathered to demand political reform, greater accountability, freedom of the press and freedom of speech. By mid‑May the protests had drawn around one million people into the square. The authorities responded with a mix of conciliatory and hardline measures, leading to the violent suppression in early June.

Cloud Platform at Juyongguan

At Juyongguan Pass on the Great Wall, the Cloud Platform is a stone structure originally built as the base of three white Buddhist stupas in the mid‑14th century, during the late Yuan period. Later a Buddhist hall was added on the platform during the Ming dynasty, but it was destroyed by fire in the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty. The platform is broader at the bottom and narrower toward the top, with arched gateways on its northern and southern sides. Its surfaces are covered with Buddhist relief carvings and inscriptions in six languages.

St. Joseph’s Church, Beijing

Situated at 74 Wangfujing Street, St. Joseph’s Church (also called Wangfujing Church or Dongtang) is a three‑story Romanesque building that incorporates Chinese traditional elements. Jesuit missionaries completed the first church on this site in 1655; after several renovations the present structure dates from 1904. The blend of Western and Chinese architectural details makes it a distinctive landmark on the bustling shopping street.

Yunju Temple

In Fangshan District, Yunju Temple houses the world’s largest collection of stone Buddhist sutra steles and preserves one of only two surviving woodblocks for the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka, together with rare printed and handwritten copies of the Buddhist canon. The temple’s historic pagodas date from the Tang and Liao dynasties; the original buildings at the mountain’s base were destroyed during the War of Resistance against Japan, leaving the stone scriptures safe in caves on Stone Scripture Mountain.

Zhenjue Temple (Five Pagoda Temple)

Located in Haidian District, Zhenjue Temple is famed for its Vajra Throne Pagoda, regarded as the earliest of its kind in China. The temple dates from the Ming dynasty and is formally known as the Temple of the Great Righteous Awakening (Da Zhenjue Temple). Its popular name, Five Pagoda Temple, comes from the five small pagodas that surround the central Vajra Throne structure.

Beijing National Stadium (Bird’s Nest)

Set within the Olympic Park, the Beijing National Stadium is nicknamed the Bird’s Nest for its exterior of interlaced steel trusses that form an irregular, nest‑like grid. Construction began with groundbreaking in December 2003, work started in March 2004, and the stadium was completed on 28 June 2008. It covers about 204,000 square metres, offers around 91,000 seats with temporary seating and a regular capacity of about 80,000. In 2014 it was named one of the Ten Great Contemporary Chinese Buildings.

National Museum of China

Flanking the east side of Tiananmen Square, the National Museum of China occupies nearly 200,000 square metres and contains 48 exhibition halls. Its collection exceeds 1.4 million items, ranging from ancient artefacts and rare books to modern historical objects and works of art. The museum took its present shape in 2003 when the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution were merged. Among its holdings are more than 815,000 ancient cultural objects, 340,000 modern and contemporary historical objects, and over 240,000 volumes of rare books and ancient texts, with nearly 6,000 items classified as first‑grade cultural relics.

National Centre for the Performing Arts

Known locally as “The Boiled Egg,” the National Centre for the Performing Arts features a striking semi‑spherical form designed by French architect Paul Andreu. It opened in 2007 and is described as the largest theatre complex in Asia. The building measures 212.20 m east‑to‑west, 143.64 m north‑to‑south and rises 46.285 m high, covering about 119,900 square metres with a total construction area of roughly 165,000 square metres. Inside are an opera hall, a music hall, a theatre, exhibition halls, restaurants and audio‑shop facilities.

Cuandixia

In the mountain settlement of Zhaitang in Mentougou District, Cuandixia is a historic village established during the Ming dynasty. It retains a remarkable collection of Qing‑dynasty siheyuan courtyard homes—about 76 residences—that give the village its distinctive architectural character. The well‑preserved houses and courtyards provide a clear sense of traditional village life rather than isolated old structures.

Niujie Mosque

Niujie Mosque, regarded as Beijing’s oldest and largest Islamic landmark, was first established in 996 under the Liao dynasty. After periods of destruction and rebuilding through the Jin, Mongol, Ming, Qing, Republican and modern eras, the mosque presents a blend of Chinese exterior architecture and an interior rich in Islamic calligraphy and decoration. The complex covers roughly ten thousand square metres, its main prayer hall about six hundred square metres, and it can accommodate more than a thousand worshippers. The structure is largely timber‑built.

Yonghe Temple (Lama Temple)

Yonghe Temple, also known as the Lama Temple, is the largest surviving Gelug school Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Beijing. It began in 1694 as a mansion for Prince Yong (Yinzhen), was renamed Yonghe Temple in 1725, and converted into a Gelug monastery in 1744 by the Qianlong Emperor. The complex stretches roughly 400 metres from south to north along a central axis, with courtyards unfolding in sequence. Its front follows a Han Buddhist monastery layout, while the rear buildings rise progressively higher, reflecting the transformation from imperial residence to Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

Explore Beijing with Neywo

Neywo’s free audio guide for Beijing includes six walking tours, one bus route and one bike route. The walking tours range from 2.59 km (100 minutes, 12 stops) to 5.24 km (110 minutes, 4 stops); the bus route is 11.8 km (51 minutes, 4 stops); and the bike route is 3.7 km (18 minutes, 7 stops). Each story plays automatically as you reach a place, letting you explore at your own pace with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages, so you can enjoy the guide in the language that suits you best.

Ready to see the city’s imperial palaces, tranquil temples and modern landmarks? Download Neywo, plug in your headphones and let the stories of Beijing unfold as you walk.