Fragrant Hills
park in Beijing, China
Fragrant Hills Park or Xiangshan Park (香山公园) is a public park and former imperial garden at the foot of the Western Hills in the Haidian District, Beijing, China. It was also formerly known as Jingyi Garden or "Jingyiyuan" (靜宜園). It covers 160 ha (395 acres) and consists of a natural pine-cypress forest, hills with maple trees, smoke trees and persimmon trees, as well as landscaped areas with traditional architecture and cultural relics. The name derives from the highest peak of Fragrant Hills, Xianglu Feng (Incense Burner Peak), a 575-meter (1,886 ft) hill with two large stones resembling incense burners at the top.
Name
The syllable xiang in the Fragrant Hills' Chinese name Xiangshan refers to incense, not fragrance per se. This name is perhaps derived from the name of the highest peak Xianglu Feng (香炉峰, lit. 'Incense-burner Peak'). The bronze-cast incense burner (with remote roots in ritual bronzes) being a common article found in temples. Indeed, incense was also often used as a metonym for temples.
History
The park was built in 1186, during the rule of the Jin dynasty, and was expanded during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. In 1745, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered the addition of several new halls, pavilions and gardens to the park, renaming it the "Garden of Tranquility and Pleasure".
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q943688. VIAF identifies the subject as 141928489. The Library of Congress control number is n83024759. Authority coordinates are 39.991, 116.180. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1186 and 1745.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fragrant Hills” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.