Bell and Drum Towers and Muslim Quarter 钟鼓楼与回坊

About Bell and Drum Towers and Muslim Quarter

The two towers are a pair and are dated differently. The heritage administration records that they stand in the centre of Xi'an, were first built in the Hongwu years of the Ming and have a history of more than 600 years, and that they are a pair, both being time-announcing structures of ancient China, mostly built in the central part of a city and mostly of two storeys. It records that the Bell Tower was first built in 1384, the seventeenth year of the Hongwu reign, and that it is the earliest surviving Ming bell tower; it first stood at Yingxiang Temple on Guangji Street in Xi'an's West Street, facing the Drum Tower east to west, and when the city was extended and its centre moved east the tower fell west of centre, so in 1582, the tenth year of the Wanli reign, the Shaanxi provincial governor Gong Maoxian had the magistrates of Xianning and Chang'an counties move it to its present site, the move leaving nothing but the foundation changed. In 1740 the tower was repaired again under governor Zhang Kai, still to the original early-Ming structure, except that the Tang Jingyun bell hanging inside was moved outside so that its time-announcing sound would carry further. The Drum Tower stands at the southern end of Beiyuanmen street, facing the Bell Tower, and was first built in 1380, the thirteenth year of the Hongwu reign, slightly earlier than the Bell Tower.

The administration describes both buildings in detail. The Bell Tower is a storeyed building with triple eaves and a four-cornered pyramidal roof, standing on a square base of grey brick and lime; under the base a cross-shaped arched passage 6 metres high and 6 metres wide connects the four great streets running east, west, south and north; the storey above has open cylindrical colonnades on all four sides and tiered flying eaves and is 27 metres high, and the building and base together are 36 metres high; it has two storeys, reached by steps to the platform on the base and then into the ground-floor hall, which has doors on four sides, a platform around it and a coffered painted ceiling, while the upper storey has timber lattice doors opening onto an outer gallery, and the roof is laid with green glazed tiles. The Drum Tower stands on a tall oblong base pierced by a north-south arched passage 6 metres high and 6 metres wide; the building sits at the centre of the base, is a timber-framed storeyed structure seven bays wide and three bays deep with galleries on all four sides, and has two storeys, the first with a waist eave and a flat platform and the second with a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof covered in grey tiles with green glazed tile edging.

The towers' listing is recorded twice. The Xi'an Municipal Cultural Heritage Administration's register of the city's 58 nationally protected cultural relics units enters Xi'an's Bell Tower and Drum Tower as a single national-level entry, of the Ming period, in the ancient-architecture kind, in Lianhu District, published in the fourth batch on 20 November 1996, with a note that they were in the first batch of provincial protected units on 6 August 1956. The provincial administration records that they were listed by the State Council as nationally protected cultural relics units in 1996, and that its preservation office was set up in 1953 out of what had been the Xi'an Drum Tower exhibition hall; that office holds more than 300 items of its own, of which more than 50 are precious relics including calligraphy and paintings given by Qi Baishi.

The district around the towers carries the second half of the name. The 2023 report records that Beiyuanmen takes its name from the Qing arrangement under which the Shaanxi provincial governor's office stood north of the Drum Tower and the Shaanxi-Gansu governor-general's office south of it; the governor's office was called the North Office and the north-south street facing its gate was called Beiyuanmen. The district lies in the central urban area of Xi'an, bounded by Beida Street to the east, the west city wall to the west, West Street to the south and Lianhu Road to the north, covers about 2.24 square kilometres, has 49 streets and lanes of various sizes and a resident population of about 80,000. It retains 21 historic buildings and houses, six of them nationally protected cultural relics units, in the Guanzhong traditional house and market-building style, and the report describes them as of high building standard and artistic value. It has more than 2,600 businesses, of which more than 1,200 are culture-and-tourism related, selling more than 1,000 kinds of goods, mostly local snacks, dried fruit in season, local specialities, tourist souvenirs, cultural-creative products and leisure services, among other things; in August 2022 the district was selected in the second batch of national-level night-time culture and tourism consumption clusters. The report records that the district government has been improving three kinds of tourism routes — 2-hour, 3-hour, half-day and one-day fine routes, study-tour routes, and night-tour routes — but it calls none of them a walking route and gives no route for the towers themselves.

On what a visitor can actually do, the record has to be careful. The catalogue describes this entry as a district rather than a single gate, and that is what the sources support: the towers are two listed buildings with their own admission, and Beiyuanmen is a public street area. The provincial administration's 2011 page does give opening hours for April to November and November to March and a ticket price of 27 yuan for each tower, but that page is fifteen years old at the time of writing and hours and prices are set by the operator; this record carries none of them, and no cited source gives a current booking channel or a closure notice. Visitors should check the operator directly.

What to look for

• The Bell Tower, first built in 1384 and moved to its present site in 1582, a storeyed building with triple eaves and a four-cornered pyramidal roof 27 metres high on a base that brings it to 36 metres, with a cross-shaped arched passage beneath it connecting the four great streets
• The Drum Tower at the southern end of Beiyuanmen street, first built in 1380, a timber-framed storeyed structure seven bays wide and three bays deep on a tall oblong base pierced by a north-south arched passage
• The Tang Jingyun bell, which the provincial administration records was moved out of the Bell Tower in 1740 so that its time-announcing sound would carry further
• The Bell and Drum Towers preservation office's collection of more than 300 items, of which more than 50 are precious relics including calligraphy and paintings given by Qi Baishi
• The Beiyuanmen historic district, about 2.24 square kilometres with 49 streets and lanes and a resident population of about 80,000
• The 21 historic buildings and houses the district retains, six of them nationally protected cultural relics units, in the Guanzhong traditional house and market-building style
• The district's business streets, which the 2023 report records hold more than 2,600 businesses, more than 1,200 of them culture-and-tourism related, selling more than 1,000 kinds of goods

Location & getting there

Getting to Bell and Drum Towers and Muslim Quarter

Choose a precise starting address and return transport stop. Access to individual buildings, performances or viewing platforms is separate from access to public streets.

• Search for 钟鼓楼与回坊 with 西安市 and 莲湖区.