UNESCO World Heritage SiteNational 5A Scenic AreaNorthwest China
Terracotta Army, Xi'an
秦始皇兵马俑博物馆 · Shaanxi, Xi'an
The vast buried army of life-sized clay warriors and horses guarding China's first emperor.
The Terracotta Army consists of thousands of life-sized clay soldiers, archers, cavalry and horses buried in battle formation near the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, China's first unifying emperor. Excavated from 1974, the three main pits form one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, each figure individually modelled with its own face.
Created around 210 BC to accompany the emperor in the afterlife, the army was built by hundreds of thousands of labourers and lost after the site was burned and buried. Farmers digging a well rediscovered it in 1974. The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987.
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