Small Wild Goose Pagoda

Small Wild Goose Pagoda tickets and tours: which one to book

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda stands in the grounds of the Xi'an Museum, and entry to the whole site, pagoda gardens and museum together, is free. Foreign visitors need their passport, and there is a daily cap on numbers, so reserving a slot in advance through the museum's online booking system is the safe course, especially at weekends and in Chinese holiday periods. Arrive without a booking and you may be turned away when the quota is full. Most travellers simply go on their own. The site is a short walk or taxi ride south of the city wall's South Gate, and the nearest metro stations are a few minutes away.

Because it is free and compact, it slots easily into a day spent between the walled city and the southern districts. No tour is sold for this pagoda alone. Its far bigger and busier namesake, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, about 3 km to the south-east, is the focus of most guided city walks and small-group tours in Xi'an, and some private guides add the Small Wild Goose Pagoda as a quieter companion stop. If you hire a guide for the day, ask to include it: the contrast between the two Tang pagodas is much easier to understand with someone to explain it. A guided tour is not necessary for the site itself, however, as the museum labels are bilingual and the grounds are easy to navigate.

Visiting Small Wild Goose Pagoda: what to see and how to behave

The pagoda was built between 707 and 709, when Xi'an was Chang'an, capital of the Tang empire, as part of the Jianfu Temple, a monastery founded in honour of the late emperor Gaozong and one of the main centres for translating Buddhist scriptures brought from India. It originally had fifteen storeys; earthquakes, above all the great Shaanxi earthquake of 1556, brought down the top two, leaving the thirteen tiers and broken summit you see today, a little over 43 m high. Look at the shape. Unlike the solid, stepped bulk of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, this one is slender, its closely spaced eaves tapering in a gentle curve towards the top.

The doorways at the base have frames of greenish stone carved with Tang-period figures of celestial beings, vines and clouds, worth seeing close up. The temple grounds are laid out as a quiet park with old trees, a few rebuilt halls and the bell tower. The great iron bell, cast in 1192 and weighing about 8 tonnes, was brought here in the Qing period; its morning ring was celebrated as one of the classic Eight Views of the Chang'an region. Do not skip the Xi'an Museum building next to the gardens. Its collection of pottery figures, Tang gold and silver, Buddhist sculpture and city history gives useful context for the whole of Xi'an. The pagoda is part of the Silk Roads World Heritage Site inscribed in 2014. Keep your passport with you, as it may be checked at the gate.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

The museum and grounds open from morning to late afternoon, with last admission an hour or so before closing, and like most Chinese museums it shuts on one weekday each week, usually Tuesday; check before you go. The best moment is the first hour after opening, when local residents are still doing their exercises under the trees and the school groups have not yet arrived.

Weekends and the national holidays in early May and early October bring long security queues and fully booked quotas. Spring, from April to May, and autumn, from September to October, are the most pleasant seasons in Xi'an. Summer is hot and humid, and winter is cold and often hazy, although the site is quiet then. Allow an hour for the pagoda and gardens and another hour or so for the museum. It combines naturally with a walk or bicycle ride on the city wall, the Forest of Stone Steles museum near the South Gate, and an evening visit to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and its fountain square.