The Temple of the Sky (Chinese traditional: 天壇; simplified Chinese: 天坛; pinyin: Tiān Tán) is located in the Chinese Ville, historical quarters of the south of Beijing, in the district of Xuan Wu.

In old the China, the emperor was regarded as “wire of the Sky”, which preserved the good order on ground by establishing the link with the celestial authority. In order to show its respect with the Sky, the ceremonies of sacrifice were very important.

The Temple of the Sky was registered by UNESCO with the Liste of the world heritage in 1998.

It is actually about an important complex in the middle of the city, 1,5 km of north in the south and from 1 (minimum) to 1,7 km (maximum) of is in west. It is delimited by two walls with north and only one in the south. It contains many temples of which:

• the Room of the prayers for harvest ( IQ Nian Dian 祈年殿), house in the shape of rotunda in the north of the complex
• the Residence of the lord of the Sky ( Huang Qiong Yu 皇穹宇), house in the shape of rotunda builds on a marble hillock; the furnace bridges there were garaged when they were not used.
• the Room of the abstinence ( Zhai Gong 齋宮), palate located in the western part of the complex
• the Furnace bridge of the Sky ( Yuan Qiu Tan 圜丘壇), space resembling the terrace of the Room of the prayers for harvest, but without building in rotunda. It is located on the same axis as the room but at the south of the complex.

The architecture of the various NORTH-SOUTH directed buildings takes again the set of themes of the sky and the ground:

• pregnant square with tiles of green color which symbolize the ground
• round buildings with tiles of blue color which symbolize the sky.

Initially called Temple of the Sky and the Earth, it was built of 1406 to 1420 during the reigne of the Yongle Emperor, who was also responsible for the construction of the Prohibited City. The temple was increased and famous Temple of the Sky during the reigne of the Jiajing Emperor at the sixteenth century. The Temple of the Sky was renovated at the eighteenth century under the Qianlong Emperor. At the beginning of 2005, a restoration of an amount of 47 million yuan (about 4 ' 318 ' 000 €) of the monument is undertaken for the Olympic Games of 2008 in Beijing, but the restorations were finished the first May 2006.