Quick Answer: What Were Chinese Bell and Drum Towers For?
Chinese bell and drum towers (钟鼓楼, zhōnggǔlóu) served as civic landmarks and public signaling stations in cities such as Beijing and Xi’an. Operators used large drums and bells to announce time. In imperial Beijing, the signals helped coordinate the opening and closing of city gates.[1][2][5]
- Time: The night was divided into watches, and different signals could announce different watches.[1]
- Placement: Beijing’s Drum Tower stands south of the Bell Tower at the northern end of the Central Axis.[3][4]
- Local practice: Xi’an’s Bell Tower occupies a major crossroads. The city gazetteer records both time announcements and alarms.[5]
The two instruments could work as parts of one system. The precise sequence depended on the city and period.[1][5]
A bell could announce the same event to people working in different parts of a city. In Beijing, a late-day signal meant more than the passing of an hour. It told people when gates would close and night routines would begin.[1]
How Bells and Drums Marked the Night
Telling a city the time involved two jobs. Timekeeping instruments gave operators a way to determine when a signal was due. The large instruments in the towers then made it audible. A Beijing exhibition described older devices that used water, moving balls or burning incense, alongside the drums and bell used for the public announcement.[1]
In the early Qing practice described by Beijing’s conservation reporting, officials divided the night into five night watches (更, gēng). At the first watch signal (定更, dìnggēng) and last watch signal (亮更, liànggēng), the drum sounded before the bell. The account gives 108 strikes for each instrument at those two signals. At the three intervening watches, the bell sounded alone. The later schedule in this account used the first and last announcements.[1]
The first signal marked the transition to the night watch and closed gates. The last signal marked the approach to morning activity. Night watchmen also used portable instruments in the streets. Their local rounds and the tower announcements reached listeners in different ways.[1]
Beijing’s Towers on the Central Axis
The Beijing towers form a pair on a north-south line, with the Drum Tower on the south side. The city’s account dates their foundation to the Yuan dynasty. The surviving Drum Tower derives from Ming construction and later work. The Bell Tower building is a Qing reconstruction and contains a bronze bell from the Ming Yongle period. The date of a building and that of the instrument inside it can therefore differ by centuries.[2][4]
The bell structure rises over a high masonry platform with arched openings. An entrance arch spans a doorway, while Chinese barrel vaults explain how a longer curve can span a room. Both are ways to read what is built into a tower’s base before looking at the tiled roof and the instrument room above.[2]
UNESCO inscribed the Beijing Central Axis in 2024. The two towers are components of the ensemble, standing north of the former imperial palace and near historic commercial streets. This location puts public timekeeping within the wider arrangement of government, ceremonial and everyday spaces along the axis.[3][4]
Xi’an and Other Meanings of Drum Tower
Xi’an’s gazetteer dates the Bell Tower’s original construction to 1384 in the Ming dynasty. It now stands at the meeting point of four major streets. A district account records its move to the present site in 1582. The Drum Tower stands nearby to the west. Their position in central Xi’an differs from the north-south pair at the end of Beijing’s axis.[5][6]
The building name also appears in other settings. Drum towers in Dong villages belong to a village tradition of assembly and shared life. To interpret one of these buildings, first identify whether it stands in a civic timekeeping system or serves a different local institution.
FAQs About Chinese Bell and Drum Towers
Did the bell and drum always sound together?
In the early Qing Beijing practice recorded by the conservation account, both sounded at the first and last watches, and the bell sounded by itself at the intermediate watches. Later practice changed.[1]
Where are Beijing’s Bell and Drum Towers in relation to each other?
The Drum Tower is south of the Bell Tower. Both stand at the northern end of the Beijing Central Axis.[3][4]
Did every drum tower keep a city’s time?
Beijing’s tower was part of a civic timekeeping system. The same building name is also used for village gathering towers such as those in Dong communities.[1][2]
Sources
[1] Beijing Daily. Timekeeping devices and Qing signaling during the Drum Tower restoration
[2] Beijing Municipal Government. Bell and Drum Towers, construction history and architectural descriptions
[3] UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Beijing Central Axis
[4] Beijing Municipal Government. Landmarks along the Central Axis
[5] Xi’an Local Gazetteer Office. Xi’an Bell Tower
[6] Lianhu District Media Center. Xi’an’s Bell and Drum Towers and the relocation of the Bell Tower