The Ming Tombs (Shisanling, “the Thirteen Tombs”) are the imperial burial ground of 13 Ming emperors, spread across a beautiful valley at the foot of Tianshou Mountain about 50 km northwest of Beijing. Chosen for their perfect feng shui — cradled by mountains on three sides — the tombs were laid out over more than two centuries and are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Two parts draw visitors above all: the Sacred Way, a majestic seven-kilometre avenue lined with stone guardian statues, and Dingling, the only tomb whose underground palace has been excavated and opened to the public. As of 2026, peak-season admission to each open site runs about ¥60 (¥20 off-season), hours are 8:30am–5:30pm in peak season, and — refreshingly — no advance reservation is required; you can buy on-site or via the WeChat mini-program.
The Ming Tombs sit on the same road as the Great Wall at Badaling, which is why they’re so often combined into one day trip — and that pairing is the smartest way to visit. This guide covers what’s actually open and worth your time, the Sacred Way, Changling and the Dingling underground palace, tickets and hours, how to get there independently or by tour, and how to combine it with the Wall. If you want imperial history without the crowds of central Beijing, this valley delivers.
Ming Tombs at a glance
- What’s open: the Sacred Way (Shenlu), Changling, Dingling and Zhaoling. The rest remain closed to visitors.
- Admission: roughly ¥60 per site in peak season (Apr 1–Oct 31), ¥20 off-season (Nov 1–Mar 31). A combined ticket is available.
- Hours: 8:30am–5:30pm peak; 8:30am–4:30pm off-season.
- Reservation: not required — buy on-site or via the WeChat mini-program “昌平文旅集团”.
- Distance from Beijing: about 50 km northwest, in Changping District (1–1.5 hours).
- Internal shuttle: ¥10 single / ¥30 day pass between the spread-out sites.
- Time needed: half a day for the Sacred Way plus one or two tombs.
- Best combined with: the Great Wall at Badaling, on the same highway.
The Sacred Way (Shenlu)
For my money, the Sacred Way is the most memorable part of a Ming Tombs visit, and the part too many rushed tours skip. This is the grand ceremonial approach to the whole necropolis, beginning at a great marble archway and running through the Great Red Gate into an avenue lined with 36 stone statues — pairs of officials, generals and twelve animals including elephants, camels, mythical qilin and lions, some kneeling, some standing. Carved in the 15th century, they stand silent guard over the road the emperors’ funeral processions once travelled.
Walking the full avenue takes about 30–45 minutes at an easy pace, and it’s flat, shaded in places, and genuinely atmospheric — especially in autumn when the trees turn. If you do nothing else here, walk the Sacred Way. Many tours only stop at the statue section for photos; if you’re independent, do the whole thing.
Changling: the grandest tomb
Changling is the largest, oldest and best-preserved of the thirteen tombs — the resting place of the Yongle Emperor, the same ruler who built the Forbidden City and moved the capital to Beijing. Its centrepiece is the Hall of Eminent Favour, one of the largest surviving wooden halls in China, supported by sixty colossal columns of golden-grained nanmu wood, each a single tree trunk. The scale and the timber alone are worth the visit. Behind the hall lies the burial mound itself, the Soul Tower marking the emperor’s grave. Changling has never been excavated, so you see the magnificent above-ground architecture rather than an underground chamber.
Dingling: into the underground palace
Dingling, the tomb of the Wanli Emperor, is the only one of the thirteen whose underground palace has been excavated and opened — which makes it the unique draw of the whole site. Discovered and excavated in the 1950s, the chamber lies 27 metres below ground and you descend a long staircase into a series of cold marble halls. Inside you’ll find the great stone “self-closing” doors, the marble thrones, and the platforms where the emperor and his two empresses were laid to rest amid thousands of buried treasures (the finest of which are displayed in the on-site museum).
It’s a striking, slightly eerie experience — and a sobering one. The 1950s excavation, undertaken with the techniques of the time, caused enormous damage: exposed silks and artefacts disintegrated, and the original coffins and remains were lost in later political turmoil. The episode so alarmed Chinese archaeologists that it became national policy never to deliberately excavate an intact imperial tomb again — which is precisely why Dingling remains the only underground palace you can enter. Bring a light layer; it’s noticeably cool below ground even in summer.
A little history and feng shui
The site was chosen by the Yongle Emperor in 1409 according to strict feng shui principles: a south-facing valley sheltered by Tianshou Mountain to the north and embraced by ridges on either side, with water flowing through — an auspicious resting place that would protect the dynasty. Over the next 230 years, thirteen of the sixteen Ming emperors were buried here, each tomb a self-contained complex echoing the layout of the Forbidden City, with its own gates, halls and burial mound. Inscribed by UNESCO in 2003 as part of the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it’s one of the most complete imperial burial landscapes in the world. To see how it connects to the rest of imperial Beijing, our pillar on Beijing’s historical attractions ties it all together.
Getting there
The tombs are spread out, so plan for some shuttle-hopping once you arrive — the internal shuttle bus runs between the Sacred Way, Changling and Dingling for ¥10 a ride or ¥30 for a day pass. There are three main ways to get there from the city:
- Subway + bus: take Line Changping to Changping Dongguan, then a local bus (878 or similar) toward the tombs. Cheap but slow and requires some navigation.
- Private car / DiDi: the most flexible option, letting you hit the Sacred Way and tombs in any order and continue to the Great Wall. Expect ¥600–¥1,200 for a half- or full-day car. Our DiDi guide explains the app.
- Organised tour: by far the most popular choice, almost always paired with Badaling Great Wall — the two are on the same road and make a classic full-day combination.
For the wider menu of trips beyond the city centre, see our guide to day trips from Beijing, which covers the logistics of getting out to Changping and the surrounding sights.
Combining with the Great Wall
This is the combination almost everyone makes, and rightly so. The Ming Tombs and Badaling Great Wall lie on the same northwest highway, roughly 40 minutes apart, so a single long day can cover both: the Wall in the morning when it’s cooler and clearer, the Sacred Way and Dingling in the afternoon. It’s a full, rewarding day that pairs China’s most famous monument with its imperial burial ground. For the Wall section itself, see our Badaling guide and the overall Great Wall guide; for getting between them, the Beijing to Great Wall transport guide is useful.
Visitor tips
- Walk the full Sacred Way — it’s the highlight and many tours short-change it.
- Prioritise the Sacred Way plus Dingling if time is short; add Changling if you have a full day.
- Bring a layer for Dingling; the underground palace is cold year-round.
- Use the internal shuttle — the sites are too far apart to walk between comfortably.
- Go in spring or autumn for the best weather and foliage; see the best time to visit Beijing.
- No reservation needed, but still carry your passport for ticketing and any checks.
- Combine with Badaling for the most efficient day out.
Zhaoling and the quieter valley
The fourth open site, Zhaoling (tomb of the Longqing Emperor), sees a fraction of the visitors that Changling and Dingling get, and that’s its charm. It has been carefully restored, including its surrounding wall and the courtyard halls, giving a complete sense of a Ming tomb complex without the crowds — if you want a quiet, contemplative half-hour, this is where to find it. Beyond the open tombs, the wider valley itself is worth appreciating: the thirteen tombs are scattered across a broad, mountain-ringed basin, and the careful placement of each according to feng shui means the whole landscape was conceived as a single sacred composition. Even the tombs you can’t enter contribute to that sense of an entire valley dedicated to the imperial dead.
Best time to visit and what to bring
The tombs are at their best in spring (April–May) and autumn (September–October), when the weather is mild and the valley’s trees are either in blossom or turning gold — the Sacred Way in particular is gorgeous under autumn foliage. Summer is hot and the open avenue offers little shade, so bring a hat, sunscreen and water. Winter is cold and stark but very quiet, and admission drops to the ¥20 off-season rate. Whatever the season, bring a light layer for Dingling, which stays cold underground year-round, and wear comfortable shoes — there’s a fair amount of walking, and the shuttle helps but doesn’t eliminate it. As with all Beijing sights, carry your passport.
A sample day-trip plan
For the classic Wall-plus-Tombs day by private car: leave central Beijing by 7:30am, reach Badaling Great Wall before the worst crowds, spend two to three hours on the Wall, then drive 40 minutes to the Ming Tombs for the afternoon. Do the Sacred Way first (it’s a one-way walk, so have your driver meet you at the far end), then Dingling’s underground palace, and Changling if energy and daylight allow, before heading back to the city by early evening. If you’d rather take it slow and skip the Wall, the tombs alone make a relaxed half-day. Either way, see our overview of day trips from Beijing and the Great Wall transport guide for logistics.
The Ming dynasty context
To appreciate the tombs, it helps to know who lies here. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) was the last ethnically Han Chinese dynasty, founded by a peasant-turned-rebel who drove out the Mongol Yuan. It was an era of extraordinary achievement: the construction of the Forbidden City, the great voyages of the admiral Zheng He, the rebuilding of the Great Wall in the brick form we recognise today, and a flowering of porcelain, literature and scholarship. Thirteen of the dynasty’s sixteen emperors chose this valley for their eternal rest (the founder is buried in Nanjing, the dynasty’s first capital, and two others elsewhere for political reasons). Each tomb was built during its emperor’s lifetime, sometimes over decades, and stocked with the treasures he would need in the afterlife — a belief that drove the scale and splendour of the underground chambers.
The valley also tells the story of the dynasty’s decline. The Wanli Emperor, whose lavish tomb at Dingling you can enter, reigned for 48 years but withdrew from governing for decades, hastening the Ming’s slide toward collapse — and his is the very tomb that 20th-century archaeologists opened, with such damaging results that the experience changed Chinese policy forever. Within a few decades of Wanli’s burial, rebel armies took Beijing and the last Ming emperor hanged himself on Jingshan Hill, the same hill that today offers the famous view over the Forbidden City. Walking the Sacred Way and standing in Dingling’s cold marble halls, you’re tracing the arc of a dynasty from its confident height to its fall — which is what makes this quiet valley so much more than a collection of old tombs.
A final tip on making the most of the visit: hire a guide or bring a good audio guide if you can, because the Ming Tombs reward context more than almost any sight around Beijing. Without it, the Sacred Way is simply a pretty avenue of statues and Dingling a cold staircase; with it, you understand the symbolism of each guardian figure, the feng-shui logic of the valley, and the human stories of the emperors buried here. The on-site museum at Dingling, which displays the jade, gold and silk recovered from the underground palace, is also well worth twenty minutes — many visitors rush past it to the chamber and miss the actual treasures that were buried with the Wanli Emperor.
However you choose to visit, give the valley the time it deserves rather than treating it as a quick photo stop bolted onto a Great Wall tour. The combination of the open Sacred Way, the grand timber halls and the cool underground chamber adds up to one of the most atmospheric historical experiences around Beijing — and one of the least crowded.
Ming Tombs FAQ
Which tombs are actually open?
Four areas: the Sacred Way (the statue avenue), Changling (the grand above-ground tomb), Dingling (the underground palace), and Zhaoling. The other nine tombs are not open to visitors.
Do I need to book in advance?
No. Unlike central Beijing’s sights, the Ming Tombs don’t require an advance reservation — you can buy tickets on-site or through the WeChat mini-program. Carry your passport anyway.
How much time do I need?
Plan a half day: about 45 minutes for the Sacred Way and an hour or so each for Dingling and Changling, plus shuttle time between them. As part of a Great Wall combo, it fills out a full day.
Is the underground palace worth it?
Yes — Dingling is the only excavated imperial underground palace open in China, and descending into the marble chambers is a genuinely memorable experience. It’s the unique selling point of the whole site.
Can I combine the Ming Tombs with the Great Wall?
Absolutely — they’re on the same highway, about 40 minutes apart, and the Badaling-plus-Ming-Tombs day is the classic pairing offered by most tours and easily done by private car.
Is it suitable for kids?
The Sacred Way’s animal statues are fun for children and the descent into Dingling is an adventure, though younger kids may tire of the historical detail. See our Beijing with kids guide for pacing.
The bottom line on the Ming Tombs
The Ming Tombs reward visitors who understand what to prioritise: walk the full Sacred Way for its silent stone guardians, descend into the Dingling underground palace for the one excavated imperial chamber in China, and add the grand timber halls of Changling if you have the time. No reservation is needed, the crowds are thinner than central Beijing, and the valley is beautiful in spring and autumn. Best of all, it sits on the road to Badaling — so pair it with the Great Wall for one of the most satisfying day trips out of the city.
Plan the Wall side with our Badaling guide, browse other escapes in day trips from Beijing, and connect it to the imperial city via the Forbidden City and our pillar on Beijing’s historical attractions.