The Wooden Pagoda stands among the remains of Wanshou Temple in Zhangye City, Gansu Province. The pagoda was built in 582 in the Sui Dynasty and was rebuilt several times later. In the last year of the Qing Dynasty (1911) the pagoda was brought down by strong winds; it was reconstructed in 1926.
The rebuilt wooden pagoda, 32.8 meters high, is an octagonal nine-storey structure on a square pedestal, twenty meters long each side. The walls of the first to seventh storeys are brick, but the eaves are wooden. Both the walls and eaves of the eighth and ninth storeys are wooden. Though the wooden parts are fewer than those of Zhengding Pagoda in Hebei Province, it is one of only a few such pagodas in the whole country. The pagoda tapers gradually from the bottom, and the storeys become lower and lower. The doors and windows are on different sides on different storeys: There are doors on the east and west sides of the first storey; false doors on the east and west sides and false windows on the south and north sides of the second storey; doors on four sides and moon-shaped windows on the third storey; doors on the east and west sides and false windows on the south and north sides of the fifth storey; doors on four sides of the six storey, and no doors but moon-shaped windows on the south and north sides of the seventh storey. Carved on the false windows are designs of flowers, and above the doors are inscribed boards. The board over the east door of the first storey says, "Reach paradise," and the inscription above the west door says, "Enter the state of samadhi. " The whole pagoda looks steady and exquisite.
