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About Guanyinqiao Scenic Area
The Sichuan provincial gazetteer records the site as a national AAAA-grade tourist area covering some 330 square kilometres, and groups its landscape into five kinds: the Tibetan temple itself, high-mountain grassland, plateau lakes, mountain gorge and high-altitude autumn colour. The same entry describes Guanyinqiao as a place of religious pilgrimage for Tibetan believers from Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and Tibet. Its list of the area's main sights runs from the Guanyin temple and a white stupa through a mani-stone wall and a sacred spring to lakes such as Qingrenhai and Niuduzihai, the Changdu temple and the Liujiazhai site.
The temple houses the image called Tiancheng Guanyin. Xinhua reported in 2013 that tradition holds it was found in the ground and brought out by lay believers in the 7th century, and that a temple was then built to house it; because the figure has four arms it is called the Four-Armed Guanyin, which in Tibetan is Tujiqinbo. The same report records that the temple was listed in 1980 as a key open monastery of Aba Prefecture, that it has carried the successive names Lequiong Dechenlang, Chuosijia Guanyin Temple and Tiancheng Guanyin Temple, and that Tibetan areas refer to it as the 'second Potala Palace'. Pilgrims from Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu and Sichuan arrive between October and the following March.
What to look for
- The four-armed image of Guanyin enshrined in the temple, the Tiancheng Guanyin, which is called the Four-Armed Guanyin and, in Tibetan, Tujiqinbo.
- The white stupa and the mani-stone wall, both named on the provincial gazetteer's list of the scenic area's main sights.
- The lakes on that same list, Qingrenhai and Niuduzihai, which belong to the plateau-lake element of the area's five landscape types.
- The high-altitude autumn colour, one of the five kinds of landscape the gazetteer records for the area.
Location & getting there
Getting to Guanyinqiao Scenic Area
Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.
- Search for 观音桥 with 阿坝藏族羌族自治州 and 金川县.
Find Guanyinqiao Scenic Area
观音桥 · 金川县
No reliable map pin yet: search by the Chinese name.
Sources & visit information
The linked sources support the identity and background described in this introduction. Opening hours, admission, activity availability and exact arrival arrangements have not been comprehensively checked. Confirm current visitor information with the venue; the original catalogue locality and editorial review flag are retained.