The Temple of Heaven (tiān tán天坛) was the place where the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would worship Heaven and pray for bumper crops.
The northern part of the outer surrounding wall is semi-circular in shape while the southern part square, a pattern symbolic of the ancient belief that Heaven was round and the earth square. The double surrounding wall separates the temple into two parts—the inner and outer temples with the main structures in the inner one, covering a space of 273 hectares in all.
The inner temple is also partitioned by a wall into two groups of buildings. The north structure is the Altar of Praying for Bumper Crops with the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests as the principal building used to pray in spring for a bumper harvest in the year. The south structure is the Circular Mound Altar used to worship Heaven at the winter solstice where the principal construction is a large round marble terrace named the Circular Mound.