Mount Putuo (Putuoshan) is a small island of about 12 km² in the Zhoushan archipelago off the coast of Zhejiang, venerated as the earthly home of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. One of the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism, it has been a destination of seaborne pilgrimage since the tenth century and is still covered with active monasteries, hermitages and cave shrines.
- Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains
- National scenic area · 1982
Key facts
- Area
- about 12.5 km²[2]
- Highest point
- Foding Shan, under 300 m
- Bodhisattva
- Guanyin (观音, Guānyīn), Avalokiteshvara
- Province
- Zhejiang (Zhoushan)
Overview
Putuo is a mountain only in the religious sense: its highest point is under 300 metres. What makes it one of the Four Sacred Mountains, beside Wutai, Emei and Jiuhua, is its identification with Potalaka, the island mountain where, in the Avatamsaka Sutra, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara — Guanyin in Chinese — teaches. The Chinese name Putuo is a shortening of Potalaka.
The island is a monastic landscape at sea level: granite headlands, sandy beaches and wooded hills strung with three great monasteries and dozens of smaller temples and nunneries. Pilgrims, many of them from the fishing and seafaring communities of the east coast, come for the Guanyin festivals on the nineteenth day of the second, sixth and ninth lunar months.
How the landscape formed
The island is built of Mesozoic granite, weathered into rounded boulders, sea caves and clefts along its rocky eastern coast. Between the headlands lie two long sandy beaches, the Hundred-Step Sand and the Thousand-Step Sand. The hills are low and covered with evergreen forest that has been protected by the monasteries for centuries, giving the island more tree cover than most of the surrounding archipelago.
Highlights
Puji Temple
普济寺
The front monastery and largest on the island, the centre of the Guanyin festivals.
Fayu Temple
法雨寺
The rear monastery, set against the hill below Foding Shan, whose Nine Dragon Hall is said to have been brought from the Ming palace in Nanjing.
Huiji Temple
慧济寺
The monastery near the summit of Foding Shan, with glazed-tile roofs among the trees.
Guanyin of the South Sea
南海观音
A 33-metre bronze statue on the southern headland, completed in 1997, facing the sea.
Tide Sound Cave
潮音洞
A sea cave where the waves boom, long believed to be a place where Guanyin appeared.
Thousand-Step Sand
千步沙
The longest beach on the island, on the east coast between Puji and Fayu.
Plants and wildlife
The monasteries' protection of the island's woods left Putuo with old subtropical evergreen forest, including trees several centuries old around the temples. The island is also the only natural home of one of the rarest trees in the world.
Plants
Putuo hornbeam
普陀鹅耳枥
Carpinus putoensis, a hornbeam known in the wild from a single tree on the island, now propagated to save the species.
Camphor trees
樟树
Old camphors shade the temple courtyards and the pilgrim paths.
Wildlife
Seabirds
海鸟
Egrets and gulls along the shore; the surrounding waters are part of the Zhoushan fishing grounds.
Culture and legend
According to the island's founding story, the Japanese monk Egaku (Huie) tried in 916 to take a Guanyin statue from Mount Wutai home to Japan, but his ship was held back by storms and water lilies off Putuo until he left the image on the island. The shrine built for it, the “Guanyin Who Would Not Leave”, marks the beginning of Putuo as a sacred site. Imperial patronage in the Song, Ming and Qing made it a great monastic centre, though it suffered from pirate raids and coastal evacuations in the Ming. Many temples were damaged in the 1960s and restored from the 1980s.
Guanyin Who Would Not Leave
不肯去观音院
The small shrine on the Purple Bamboo Grove headland recalling Egaku's story.
Purple Bamboo Grove
紫竹林
A nunnery and grove on the south-east coast associated with Guanyin's iconography.
Duobao Pagoda
多宝塔
A Yuan-dynasty stone pagoda near Puji Temple, the oldest standing structure on the island.
History
916
Egaku leaves a Guanyin image on the island
The founding legend of Putuo as Guanyin's sacred site.
Song dynasty (960–1279)
Imperial recognition
The island is granted to Buddhist monks and becomes a pilgrimage centre on the sea route to Japan and Korea.
Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
Destruction and revival
Pirate raids and coastal evacuation empty the island, which is restored with imperial support in the late sixteenth century.
1982
National scenic area
Listed among the first national key scenic areas.
1997
Guanyin of the South Sea statue
The bronze statue on the southern headland is completed.
Through the seasons
Spring
Mild and often foggy; the Guanyin birthday festival in the second lunar month brings the largest crowds of the year.
Summer
Warm sea breezes make the island cooler than the mainland; typhoons can halt ferry services from July to September.
Autumn
Clear, settled weather and the Guanyin festival in the ninth lunar month; the best season overall.
Winter
Cold, windy and quiet, with few visitors outside the New Year period.
Routes and ways in
Temple circuit
From the ferry pier to the Guanyin of the South Sea, Purple Bamboo Grove, Puji Temple and along the Thousand-Step Sand to Fayu Temple — an easy day on foot or by island shuttle.
Pilgrim path to Foding Shan
A stone stairway from Fayu Temple climbs to Huiji Temple on the summit; pilgrims traditionally bow every few steps.
Practical notes
- Putuo is reached by ferry from Zhoushan's Zhujiajian and from Ningbo and Shanghai; all sea crossings depend on the weather.
- The island is a place of worship: dress modestly in temples, and do not photograph monks or nuns without asking.
- Accommodation on the island is limited and fills early during festivals.
Cities to start from
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Zhejiang Provincial People's Government — Zhejiang Provincial People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Zhoushan Municipal People's Government — Zhoushan Municipal People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Ningbo Municipal People's Government — Ningbo Municipal People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
More mountains and nature in Zhejiang
- LakeQiandao Lake千岛湖A reservoir of a thousand islands over drowned towns
- Nature reserve · 1,506 mTianmu Mountains天目山Giant cryptomerias, wild ginkgo and the mountain that named tenmoku
- LakeWest Lake西湖The shaped lake that set the pattern for Chinese landscape design
- MountainYandang Mountains雁荡山A collapsed volcano of rock pinnacles and long waterfalls
- LakeLake Tai太湖The great lake at the heart of the Yangtze Delta
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