Guangxiao Temple Guangzhou: Hours, Tickets and How to Visit

The Temple of the Six Banyan Trees page on this site says Guangxiao Temple on Guangxiao Road is the older, fuller Huineng site, and that this page does not cover both. This is that page. Guangxiao is the oldest Buddhist temple in Guangzhou and, by standing, the more important of the two. It gets fewer visitors. If you want a pagoda you can photograph rising above the rooftops, do Six Banyan Trees. If you want the older compound and the Chan history, do Guangxiao.

The Chinese name is 光孝寺. English maps use Guangxiao Temple or Guangxiao Si. The address is No. 109 Guangxiao Road, Yuexiu District (光孝路109号), at the north end of the street. Search the Chinese name in a map app. English spellings wander.

How to get to Guangxiao Temple

Take Metro Line 1 to Ximenkou (西门口). Leave by Exit C and walk north along Guangxiao Road. 2026 guides put that walk at around five minutes. Six Banyan Trees is a seven to eight minute walk to the northeast, so the two temples pair easily on foot.

From Ximenkou, one stop west on Line 1 is Chen Clan Ancestral Hall. That matters, because it makes a clean second stop for the afternoon. Buses still run down Guangxiao Road. Route numbers change. For a first visit, give the metro instruction.

Hours, tickets, and what the listings actually say

2026 Guangzhou listings put the gate at 8.30am to 4.30pm. Some guide sites write 8am to 5pm, and a couple open it earlier. Lantern Festival is listed as 7am to 5pm. On a public holiday, read the board at the gate, because the hours move.

The ticket is genuinely messy, and this page will not pretend otherwise. The figure that turns up most is five yuan at the gate. Newer 2026 pages list the grounds as free. Carry small change, and pay what the window asks that day. Do not plan the visit around a fixed fee.

This is a working temple, not a museum. People burn incense, the halls stay in use, and the first and fifteenth of the lunar month draw the crowds. A quiet weekday morning is the better visit.

The Hair-Burying Pagoda and the Sixth Patriarch

The thing people come to see is the 瘗发塔, the Hair-Burying Pagoda. In 676, in the Tang dynasty, Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, was tonsured here, and his hair was buried under this pagoda. It is a seven storey, octagonal pagoda of brick, and it does not need climbing. The view of it from the courtyard, with the trees and the yellow and red cloths around it, is the shot you want.

Huineng is the reason the temple is famous. The story that matters happened here, when the temple was still called Faxing Temple. Master Yinzong was lecturing, a flag fluttered in the wind, and two monks argued over whether the flag moved or the wind moved. Huineng answered that neither moved, and that it was the mind that moved. Yinzong understood who he was and ordained him. The wind-and-flag exchange is one of the set pieces of Chan, and it happened in this courtyard.

The Southern Han iron pagodas

Guangxiao also holds the East and West iron pagodas, cast in the Southern Han. The West tower was cast in 963, the East four years later, in 967. They are the oldest surviving large iron pagodas in China. The West tower lost its upper storeys when the hall around it collapsed, and only three remain. The East tower survives more completely. Both stand in the open, so you read them from the ground, not from a staircase.

That is the honest way to see them. The courtyard is flat, the relics are at eye level or just above, and the pagoda you photograph above the trees is the Hair-Burying Pagoda, not these.

What you see around the courtyard

The Mahavira Hall goes back to 401, in the Eastern Jin, when Dharmayasa from Kashmir raised the first hall here. That founding is the temple’s claim. The building you see today was rebuilt later, but the position and the name are the root. Three large Buddhas sit inside. Keep voices down.

Nearby, a bodhi tree is traditionally said to have been brought from India in the Liang dynasty and planted here, under which Huineng taught. The Huineng Hall dates to 1008, in the Northern Song, and holds a figure of the Sixth Patriarch. There is a well, the Xi Bo Quan, that carries Bodhidharma’s name. Be careful with that one. Bodhidharma landed at Hualin Temple, not here, and the well borrows his name. You can mention it and keep it straight.

This is a working temple, so the usual rules hold. Cover shoulders and knees. Keep your voice down in the halls. Do not photograph worshippers up close without asking. Skip flash near gilt statues even when a sign is missing. Thresholds are high, so step over them rather than on them.

How the temple got this old

The site was once the residence of Zhao Jiande, a king of the Nanyue state. In the Three Kingdoms, Yu Fan, a Wu official posted to the south, lectured here and planted many haritaki trees, so the ground was called Helin, the grove, or Yu Garden. After Yu Fan died his family gave the house over to become a temple, first called Zhizhi Temple. The name moved through Wangyuan Temple, then Faxing Temple in the Tang, then Baoyuan Guangxiao Temple in the Song, and the two characters Guangxiao stayed.

Old Guangzhou has a line about it. 未有羊城，先有光孝, which runs roughly as before there was a Guangzhou, there was Guangxiao. It gets called the first temple of Lingnan, it heads the four great temples of the city, and it was named in the first batch of national key cultural relics in 1961. Dharmayasa, Bodhidharma, Jianzhen and Huineng all have links here, with the Bodhidharma caveat above.

Walk it with nearby Guangzhou attractions

Guangxiao sits in the old Yuexiu core, close to the other old-city stops.

• Temple of the Six Banyan Trees is a seven to eight minute walk away. Do both. Guangxiao gives you the history, Six Banyan Trees gives you the pagoda you photograph over the rooftops.
• Chen Clan Ancestral Hall is one metro stop west on Line 1, for Lingnan woodcarving.
• The royal half of the Nanyue King Museum is the other way, and the temple site was itself a Nanyue residence, so the two read as one history.
• Beijing Road and Sacred Heart Cathedral sit east, and Shamian Island is a short metro ride southwest.

The 3-4 day Guangzhou itinerary already puts the Flower Pagoda on Day 1. Guangxiao is the walk that belongs with it. The best 10 Lingnan attractions list treats Six Banyan Trees as the compact temple stop. This page is the older compound.

A short plan that actually fits

Leave Ximenkou by Exit C, spend an hour at Guangxiao, then walk northeast to Six Banyan Trees to see the Flower Pagoda. That is a clean morning. Take Line 1 one stop to Chen Clan Ancestral Hall for the afternoon. Do not stack Guangxiao, Six Banyan Trees, Chen Clan and Yuexiu Park into one day. Two temples and a hall is enough.

The Guangzhou travel guide covers the whole city. This page is only the temple.

Guangzhou temple questions, answered

Is Guangxiao Temple free to enter?

Listings disagree. The figure that turns up most is five yuan at the gate, and some 2026 pages list the grounds as free. Carry small change and pay what the window asks.

How long do you need at Guangxiao?

About an hour for the main halls, the Hair-Burying Pagoda, and the two iron pagodas. Add the walk to Six Banyan Trees and it becomes a half day.

Can you climb the towers?

No. The Hair-Burying Pagoda and both iron pagodas stand in the courtyard, and none of them open for climbing.

Which metro station is nearest?

Line 1 to Ximenkou, Exit C, then about five minutes north along Guangxiao Road.

Hours and fees follow 2026 visitor listings and can change on festival days. Bendibao (Guangzhou local listings) and Ctrip list the 8.30am to 4.30pm window and the five yuan figure; some 2026 pages show the grounds free. The Guangzhou government site notes the Xi Bo Quan well and the Hair-Burying Pagoda, and Baidu Baike and the Chinese Wikipedia cover Yu Fan, the iron pagodas and the name history. The guideline history and the layering of hall, pagoda and pagodas follow the site breakdown at Guide Me, and the old saying is quoted in a China Daily piece.