Zīyáng

Ziyang was the county seat of Yanzhou prefecture in southern Shandong. In the northeast of the city rose the thirteen-storey Xinglong Pagoda, an octagonal brick tower named for the Buddhist temple that surrounded it. The Ming raised Yanzhou to a prefecture in 1385, and the seat county received the name Ziyang in 1471. After an earthquake cracked the pagoda, repairs were undertaken under the Qing between 1688 and 1720.