Songyang Academy

Songyang Academy is one of the eight places and eleven items of the 'Center of Heaven and Earth' historical architectural complex in Dengfeng, a World Cultural Heritage site, and is a national 4A-level tourist attraction (point). In June 2001, it was announced by the State Council as a national key cultural relics protection unit, located at the foot of the steep Junji Peak on the north side of Dengfeng city, named for its location on the sunny side of Mount Song. Songyang Academy was founded in the eighth year of the Taihe era of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty (484 AD), originally named Songyang Temple, renamed to Songyin Observatory in 605 AD (during the Daye period of the Sui Dynasty), and was granted the name Songyang Academy in the second year of Jingyou of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty (1035 AD). Songyang Academy was an ancient higher education institution in China, one of the four great academies of the Northern Song Dynasty, and also the source and dissemination center of Neo-Confucianism during the Song Dynasty. Historical figures such as Fan Zhongyan, Sima Guang, Cheng Hao, and Cheng Yi, were here. Songyang Academy was destroyed by war at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and after many reconstructions and repairs over the generations, the current architectural layout of the academy maintains the style of the Qing Dynasty, with more than five hundred existing halls and rooms, composed of five courtyards in sequence on the central axis, including the Gaoshan Yangzhi Archway, Xiansheng Hall, Lecture Hall, Daotong Ancestral Hall, and the Book Collection Tower. Its unique planning layout and physical preservation have irreplaceable exemplary significance for the study of ancient Chinese academy architecture, educational system, and Confucian culture.