LuoYang, Henan Province - Longmen Caves Site Map, by ChinaReport.com

This Map basic schematic map gives an overview of the Longmen Buddhist Caves UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, which is situated along the Yi River near the village of Longmen, by now a suburb of Luoyang, and ancient Imperial Capital of China situated in north-western Henan Province. The Yi River, along which banks the various platforms and caves and their Buddhist Statues and Carvings are located, flows from south to north through the site. Beyond, it becomes a tributary of the Luo River which then ultimately ads to the Yellow River (Huang He) in north Henan Province.

The Longmen Caves (龙门石窟 ; In history known as: Yique (伊阙, "The Gate of the Yi River" or also as Dragon's Gate Grottoes) are considered among the finest examples of ancient early Chinese Buddhist Art, and were therefor listed as UNESCO World Cutural Heritage in the year 2000. With the earliest art dated to the Non-Indigenous Tuoba Wei (Northern Wei) Dynasty Era (385 - 585 AD) a period when most of north China was not under Han Chinese control or culture, and the later caves and art dated to include most of the Tang Dynasty Era (618 - 907 AD), a period of great blossoming of trans-continental trade, arts, culture and Empire, the complex of caves is a unique museum gallery of art styles as they followed and emerged from eachother throughout the first millenium AD of the silk road history. The Longmen Caves are ranked as among the Three Greatest such Buddhist Cave Art sites in China, the other two being the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang in Gansu Province and the Yungang Caves at Yungang Village near Datong in Shanxi Province. Sveral other more minor such sites exist in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region along the ancient silk road.

The Monumental locations along the west bank of the Yi River at Longmen are the Three Binyang Caves, the Wanfodong Cave (Ten Thousand Buddha Cave), the Fengxian Temple Cave. The opposite East Bank is longer and holds the Three Legutai Caves, the collection of Grottoes of the East Hill and the Cave for reading Sutra's, as well as the hilltop Xiang Mountain Temple (Xiang Shan Si) and the adjacent Bai Literary Garden dedicated to the Tang Era Poet Li Bai and other great Literati of that time. In between are two bridges allowing visiting tourist a circular path of exploration.