Yunyan Temple pagoda is located 8 inside the gate of Tiger Hill, Shantang Street, Changmenwai District, Suzhou, China. In 1961, it is listed as national key cultural relics protection site (including two gates of Yunyan temple).
Yunyan Temple is also called Tiger Hill Temp in ancient times. The site used to the premise for a villa owned by WangXun, Minister over the Masses in the eastern Jin Dynasty, and his brother Wang Min. Afterwards they denoted it to construct a Buddhist temple. Yunyan temple is an octagonal, seven-story brick Buddhist pagoda, modeled after wooden structures. Now there is no Buddhist monastery or temple. The remaining height of the pagoda is 47.7 meters high, the tower summit slanting angle 2 ° 48 '43.1 ", slanting distance 2.34 meters. The opposite sides of the bottom of pagoda are 13.64 meters east to west, and 13.81 meters long north to south. The tower became smaller one story after another from bottom to top, and outer outline represents contour curve slightly bulging out.
According to the historical records, there was a tower during the period of the State of Chen (A.D. 557-589) in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the first year of Reign of Renshou in Sui Dynasty(601), people built a tower on the mountain. According to cultural relics discovered when repairing tower, this current tower was built from the sixth year of the State of Later Zhou(959) in Five dynasties to the second year of the Jianlong Reign of Northern Song Dynasty (961). The tower underwent several repairs during Zhizheng Reign of Yuan Dynasty, Reign of Yongle Emperor, Reign of Zhentong Emperor, Reign of Chongzhen Emperor of Ming Dynasty. The seventh story of today was restored around the eleventh year (1638) of Reign of Chongzhen Emperor in Ming Dynasty. The pagoda had been burnt seven times. It has been gradually neglected since the late Qing times, and fractured and was in great peril and in a state of disrepair over the years. Hence from 1956 to 1956, a repair and reinforcement was executed to fix the cracking of the tower, keeping it as a whole, and at the time of the repair, a group of rare and precious cultural relics were found in the tower. In 1965, the tower body was seen with cracks again. In 1977, a pagoda repair organ was founded. In 1978, the inside and outside pier in northeast part of the pagoda is found fractured, and tilting of the tower is accelerated. From 1981 to 1986, an overhaul was implemented. The monitoring records over years show that after reinforcement the pagoda was consolidated and stood firm. In 1986, the lighting grounding device was installed. In 1988, a showroom for Yunyan temple pagoda was constructed at one corner the temple yard.