The Iron Pagoda(Chinese:铁塔;pinyin:tiětǎ)is located in the Iron Pagoda Park, northeast part of Kaifeng. Actually it is not made of iron, but of red, brown, blue and green glazed bricks. As the main hue is reddish brown, the pagoda looks like iron from afar and has thus been called the Iron Pagoda for hundreds of years. It ranks the first in the pagodas and owns its fame as "the No. 1 Pagoda in China". It reaches into the sky and is a glazed pagoda whose color is like that of the iron. The Iron Pagoda was set up in 1049 AD, Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The Iron Pagoda is built to consecrate the Buddhist Remains of the Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism (the former prince in India). The Iron Pagoda was originally 120m high but was ruined by a struck of lightning. The predecessor of the Iron Pagoda was a huge octagonal, thirteen-storeyed wooden pagoda called Lingwei. It has been almost one thousand years since the pagoda was rebuilt, but it remains firm despite fierce winds, torrential rains and earthquakes. The thirteen-storey brick structure, modeled after wooden counterparts, is 54.66 meters high. The glazed bricks are lined with ordinary bricks. The doors, windows, pillars, brackets, bracket supports, pent roofs and balconies on the pagoda's exterior are all modeled after wooden ones and pieced together from twenty-eight standard brick components.
If you pay a visit to Kaifeng, don't miss Iron Pagoda. It's really worth visiting !