Transportation Guide to Maoling Mausoleum

Take the non-expressway long-distance bus bound for Xingping from Xi'an West Coach Station and get off at the Maoling Museum junction. Please note that this stop is several kilometers away from the actual Maoling Mausoleum though the names are similar. The fare is 6 yuan.

From the Maoling Museum junction, the mausoleum is another 5 kilometers away along the country road. You can take local three-wheeler rickshaws for 3 to 4 yuan to reach the entrance of Maoling Museum.

Maoling Mausoleum stands in the northeastern part of Xingping City, 40 kilometers north of Xi'an. It is the tomb of Emperor Liu Che of the Western Han Dynasty. There are five imperial mausoleums of the Han Dynasty in this area, hence the name Wuling Plateau (Plateau of Five Mausoleums). Emperor Wu's greatest achievement was the opening up of the Silk Road. Among the five mausoleums, Maoling boasts the largest scale, whose construction lasted for 53 years. The tomb is an earthen mound shaped like a flat-topped cone, standing 46.5 meters high and enclosed by walls on all four sides. Each side of its base measures 240 meters.

Legend has it that the emperor's jade suit sewn with gold threads, jade casket and jade walking stick were all buried inside the tomb. In the mausoleum complex, there once stood auxiliary halls and sleeping halls for sacrificial rituals, as well as residences for palace maids and tomb guardians. A staff of 5,000 people was assigned here to manage the mausoleum, taking care of tree watering, cleaning and other daily chores. A county town was also built to the southeast of Maoling, where numerous civil and military officials and wealthy noble families settled. Its population once exceeded 277,000.

The earthen mound of Maoling is in the shape of an inverted square pyramid. Its remaining height is 46.5 meters, and each side of the tomb base is 240 meters long. The mausoleum complex is square, with each side stretching about 420 meters. Earthen gate towers on the east, west and north sides still remain to this day. Around the main tomb lie the accompanying tombs of Lady Li, Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Huo Guang, Jin Midi and other figures.

As the largest Western Han imperial mausoleum with the longest construction period and the richest burial artifacts, Maoling is hailed as "China's Pyramid". Nine out of the eleven emperors of the Western Han Dynasty were buried on the Xianyang Plateau. Their mausoleums line up from west to east for nearly a hundred li, presenting a magnificent spectacle.