Famous Landmarks in Ulaanbaatar
Gilded Buddhist monasteries and a classicist palace survive amid Soviet-era blocks.
Ulaanbaatar's oldest landmarks sit on low ground beside the Tuul River, survivors of a religious capital that Soviet-era planning otherwise cleared and rebuilt from the 1950s onward. Gandantegchinlen Monastery and the Choijin Lama Temple complex are both timber Buddhist compounds raised in the early twentieth century, gilded statues and painted halls behind plain walls; one still functions as a monastery, the other has been a museum since 1938. The Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan stands apart in style, a classicist building raised for the country's last ruling lama at the edge of what was once a larger residence. Apartment blocks and former ger districts now fill the ground around these three survivors.
Gandantegchinlen Monastery
1809
A working Buddhist monastery whose main hall holds a 26-metre statue of a bodhisattva cast in gilded bronze and set with precious stones, rising above the surrounding temple roofs.
Founded in 1809 in what is now Bayangol District, the monastery was closed amid religious persecution in 1939. From 1944 to 1989 it operated as the country's only active monastery, a single concession maintained through the communist period. It has since become the country's centre of Buddhist practice, home to more than 100 resident monks and a collection of religious treasures, chief among them a 26-metre statue of Avalokiteśvara cast in gilded bronze and set with precious stones.
- It was the country's only functioning monastery for 45 years, from 1944 to 1989.
- Its central statue of Avalokiteśvara stands 26 metres tall, cast in gilded bronze and set with precious stones.
Photo: Chongkian (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Choijin Lama Temple
1904–1908
A compound of six low temple buildings in gilded, painted timber style, its dim main hall dominated by a large gilt Buddha flanked by a preserved embalmed body.
One main temple and five subordinate halls were built between 1904 and 1908 for the state oracle Choijin Lama Luvsankhaidav, brother of the reigning Jebtsundamba Khutuktu. The complex functioned as an active Buddhist site until 1937, when it was shut during the height of communist repression, then reopened the following year as a museum, a change that ultimately preserved the buildings through decades of anti-religious policy. Its main hall still keeps an 18th-century gilt statue of the Buddha beside the embalmed body of the monk Baldan Choephel.
- Its main hall holds the embalmed body of the monk Baldan Choephel alongside the Buddha statue.
- Its official name was bestowed by the Qing Guangxu Emperor, who died in 1908, the same year the complex was completed.
Photo: Vadas Róbert (Vadaro) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan
1903
A classicist stone building inside a walled palace complex, its style at odds with the ger camps and Buddhist temples nearby — the only one of four original residences on the site still standing.
Part of a larger complex known as the Green Palace, the building served as the residence of the eighth Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, later proclaimed Bogd Khan, ruler of Mongolia. It is the only one of his four original residences still standing, the other three having been lost. The complex now operates as a museum and is considered both the oldest museum in the country and the holder of its largest collection.
- It is the only surviving one of four residences originally built for the same ruler.
- It is considered the oldest museum in the country and holds the largest collection of any museum there.
Photo: Chongkian (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
Ulaanbaatar began in 1639 as a mobile Buddhist monastic camp, relocating twenty-nine times before it settled permanently on its present site in 1778. Known then as Örgöö, it grew into Mongolia's chief religious centre, seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, and a stop on the caravan route between Beijing and Kyakhta opened after the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, the city became the base of the Bogd Khanate, and a communist revolution followed in 1921. The Mongolian People's Republic, proclaimed in 1924, renamed the city Ulaanbaatar and made it the national capital. Large-scale Soviet-style urban planning began in the 1950s, clearing most of the old ger districts in favour of standardised apartment blocks that still shape much of the city today.