Introduction

In 1983, the Chinese government made a list of the "142 Key Buddhist Temples in the Han Area of China." I learned of the list in summer of 2009, and visited them during my holidays through 2012. I have now visited 132 of the 142.

You can read more about the entire pilgrimage at my China's 142 Key Temples page.

This page features images and descriptions from my "epic" three-year journey(s) to these sometimes exquisite, always interesting temples.

I have reposted here articles that I wrote for publication from December 5, 2011, to June 8, 2015, on the Travel page of the Shenzhen Daily, the newspaper for the city where I then lived.

NOTE: By June of 2015 I had written of all the temples visited so far; I still have 10 to go. Later in that same year, I left Shenzhen and moved to the Philippines, from where I have been building this blog. I am still writing for the Daily, though these days it's only columns for English learners. But from June 15, 2015, to October 23, 2017, I wrote a new series called "Temple Tales" which is also available here on The Temple Guy!