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Haunted places in China
What are the most haunted places in China? The best-known is Chaonei No. 81.
Chinese ghost lore is ancient and vast. Classical collections such as Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (18th century) are full of fox spirits and returning dead, and popular religion still honours ancestors with offerings, tomb-sweeping at Qingming and the Hungry Ghost Festival in the seventh lunar month, when the gates of the underworld are said to open.
- 1 haunting
- 5 recorded sightings
Haunted places in China
The ghost lore of China
Officially, the People’s Republic has long discouraged “superstition,” and ghost films faced censorship for decades, but urban legends have flourished online. The most famous is Chaonei No. 81, a French Baroque mansion in central Beijing whose story of an abandoned Kuomintang officer’s lover is contradicted by the building’s history as a mission house. A 2014 3D horror film based on it became China’s highest-grossing horror film of its time.
Ghost tourism in China tends to focus on religious and cultural sites rather than “haunted houses,” and many such places are temples where people come to pray. Visitors should treat them accordingly.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Fengdu, Chongqing
The “Ghost City” on the Yangtze, a hillside complex of temples and shrines devoted to the afterlife and its judges.
- The Forbidden City, Beijing
The former imperial palace has its own legends, including tales of ghostly palace women glimpsed along its walls on stormy days.
- Chaoyangmen, Beijing
The district inside the old city gate where Chaonei No. 81 stands among modern towers and old hutongs.
Timeline
- c. 1910A school for missionaries Chaonei No. 81
According to the Catholic Archdiocese of Beijing, the building is constructed for the North China Union Language School. Other accounts date it earlier or assign it to a railway manager.
- 1949The legend’s setting Chaonei No. 81
The haunting story is set at the Communist victory, when a Kuomintang officer supposedly abandoned a woman here. Records show missionaries, not officers, were using the property.
- 1994Returned to the Church Chaonei No. 81
After years of neglect and uncertainty over ownership, the property is transferred to the Catholic Patriotic Association, saving it from demolition.
- 2009A protected historic building Chaonei No. 81
The Beijing municipal government lists the house as historic, preventing demolition but complicating restoration.
- July 2014The House That Never Dies Chaonei No. 81
The 3D horror film inspired by the house opens to record box office for a Chinese horror film. The New York Times reports crowds of up to 500 visitors a day at the gate.
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