Confucius Temple Hoi An: Free Entry, What To See & The Wrong Date Everyone Repeats

Anh Khoa Hoi An · Updated 08/2026

Walk northwest along Tran Hung Dao and you’ll pass a big lotus pond with a half-moon bridge and a heavy tiled gate behind it. That’s the Confucius Temple, and you can walk straight in without a ticket. Most English-language pages will tell you it was built in the late 18th century. It wasn’t — it was built in 1961, and the reason that matters is the whole story. This guide covers what you’ll actually see, how to get there, and how to tell the three Confucian sites in Hoi An apart.

№ 01Three Confucian sites, not one — how to tell them apart

This is where nearly every English-language page goes wrong, so it’s worth two minutes. Hoi An has three surviving places of Confucian worship, all three listed as provincial heritage sites. They are completely different in age, scale and purpose.

№ 02Why most English guides give the wrong date

You’ll read online that Hoi An’s Confucius Temple was “constructed in the late 18th century and restored in 1879, 1913, 1929.” Those restoration dates are real — but they belong to a different building. The 1913 restoration is recorded on the ridge beam of the Cam Pho village shrine on Hung Vuong, half a kilometre away.

The temple on Tran Hung Dao was documented by the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation: fundraising began in September 1960, construction started in January 1961, and it was completed within two years. The temple’s own founding society published the details in 1962.

So if a sign, a guide or a blog tells you you’re standing in an 18th-century temple, you’re not. What you’re standing in is something arguably more interesting, and section 07 explains why.

№ 03Getting there, opening hours and tickets

• It’s free. The temple sits outside the boundary where the old town entrance ticket is checked, so you don’t need to buy anything.
• From the Japanese Bridge: about 500 m northwest, roughly 7 minutes on foot.
• From the central market: about 1 km straight along Tran Hung Dao.
• Two street numbers. 161 is the temple; 122 is the memorial pillar directly opposite. Both are part of the same listed site — don’t skip the second one.
• By motorbike or bicycle: Tran Hung Dao is a normal road, not a pedestrian street, so you can ride there at any hour. There’s space to park inside the grounds.
• Best light: early morning. By midday you’re shooting into the sun across the pond.
• Opening hours are daylight hours and are not formally published. It’s a working heritage site rather than a museum, so treat the gate as the source of truth.

№ 04What you’ll actually see

The layout runs in a fixed sequence, and it was designed that way in one go — the plans were drawn by Ton That Sa, a well-known artist and architect from Hue.

The couplets carved down every pillar are worth a look even if you can’t read them. The pair on the outer gate pillars begins with the characters Quang and Nam — the province’s own name — and goes on to put the Marble Mountains and the Sai Thi river on the same footing as Confucius’s home ground in Shandong. It’s a local boast hidden inside a classical form.

№ 05The 86 pines and the screen wall

The spirit screen you walk around is doing something similar. The four scenes on its faces — fisherman, woodcutter, ploughman, herdsman — each stand for a specific historical figure: Jiang Ziya, Zhu Maichen, Yi Yin and Li Mi. What they have in common is that all four did manual work before they rose. Putting them on the first thing a visitor has to walk around is a deliberate message to the local children this place was built for.

№ 06The memorial pillar across the road

At 122 Tran Hung Dao, directly opposite, stands the Quang Nam Memorial to Distinguished Scholars and Patriots — a four-sided tower on a stone pier in its own lotus pond. Most visitors photograph the temple and leave without crossing the street, which is a shame, because the base is the more unusual object.

Its four faces carry relief panels of four landmarks of old Quang Nam province:

Three landscapes and a coal mine. In 1961, on a monument in a Confucian idiom, someone chose to say that Quang Nam was mountains, a mountain pass, an island — and a working colliery. That is not a conventional thing to carve.

№ 07Why a temple built in 1961 is interesting at all

Here’s the part the “18th century” claim erases.

Quang Nam province did have an old Confucian temple: the Van Mieu at Thanh Chiem, recorded in the Nguyen dynasty’s own imperial geography. It moved twice because the river ate its foundations, settling on its final site in 1835. Then:

1. 1885 — burnedFrench troops attacked Quang Nam and burned the temple down.
2. 1890 — rebuiltThe province funded materials, appointed thirty caretakers and set aside two mau of communal rice land to support them.
3. The tablets were carried offDuring the Nghia Hoi uprising led by Nguyen Duy Hieu, the insurgents removed every spirit tablet from the temple and installed them in their own Van Mieu inland at Que Son. They refused to let men who had sided with the French perform the rites.
4. c. 1947 — gone for goodFrench forces landed at Vinh Dien. Under the scorched-earth policy of the resistance, the temple was demolished so it could not be occupied.

Thirteen years later, in September 1960, a private society of elderly Confucian scholars — the Quang Nam Antiquities Society, successor to the old provincial literati association — raised money to build a replacement in Hoi An.

So the temple is only sixty-five years old. The institution behind it is centuries old and was destroyed twice by war. That’s the thing to hold in your head while you’re crossing the bridge.

№ 08Etiquette and photography

• Dress modestly — covered shoulders, and shorts or skirts to the knee — before entering the halls.
• Take your shoes off at the threshold of the sanctuary.
• Don’t photograph anyone mid-ceremony. Architecture is fine.
• Don’t climb on the pillars or sit on the bridge parapet. It’s a listed monument, not a park.
• No picnics in the grounds.
• Keep your voice down. There are usually a few local people around, and it’s a quiet place.
• If the gate is shut, it’s shut. The village shrines in particular are often locked outside ceremony days.

№ 09What else is within walking distance

The temple sits in the old Cam Pho quarter, just outside the ticketed core. Within a few hundred metres there is a genuinely unusual concentration of active places of worship from five different traditions — all still in use, none of them museums:

None of this is an accident. Hoi An was an international trading port for several centuries, and ports pull in people from everywhere, each bringing what they believe. Visitors come for the lanterns and the old houses; the thing sitting a street away is better evidence of how open this town actually was.

If you’d rather have someone read the Chinese couplets out loud for you instead of guessing, there are guided walking tours of the old town — check dates and book at Hoi An walking tours on GetYourGuide. That’s an affiliate link: it costs you nothing extra, and we earn a small commission if you book through it.

№ 10Frequently asked questions

Is the Confucius Temple in Hoi An free to visit?

Yes. The temple stands on Tran Hung Dao street, outside the boundary where the Hoi An old town entrance ticket is checked, so you can walk in without buying anything. It is a working heritage site rather than a museum, so dress modestly, remove your shoes before entering the halls, and do not eat or picnic in the grounds.

How old is the Confucius Temple in Hoi An?

It was built in 1961 and completed within two years, not in the 18th century as many English-language pages state. Fundraising by the Quang Nam Antiquities Society began in September 1960 and construction started in January 1961. The confusion arises because the restoration dates often quoted, including 1913, belong to the older Cam Pho village shrine on Hung Vuong street half a kilometre away.

How many Confucian temples are there in Hoi An?

Three survive today and all three are listed as provincial heritage sites. The Confucius Temple at 122 and 161 Tran Hung Dao was built by the province in 1961. The Cam Pho Van Thanh Mieu at 32 Hung Vuong is the Cam Pho village shrine, whose oldest object dates from 1850. The Minh Huong Van Chi inside the old town is the Minh Huong village shrine, begun in 1867 and listed in 2023.

How do I walk there from the Japanese Bridge?

Head northwest along Tran Hung Dao for about 500 metres, which takes roughly seven minutes. The temple is at number 161 and the memorial pillar is at number 122 directly opposite. Both are part of the same listed site. Tran Hung Dao is a normal road rather than a pedestrian street, so you can also ride there at any hour and park inside the grounds.

What is the memorial pillar opposite the temple?

It is the Quang Nam Memorial to Distinguished Scholars and Patriots, a four-sided tower on a stone pier in a lotus pond at 122 Tran Hung Dao. The four faces of its base carry relief panels of the Marble Mountains, the Hai Van Pass gate, the Nong Son coal mine and the bird caves of the Cham Islands. Most visitors miss it because they do not cross the road.

Why were 86 pine trees planted in the courtyard?

The number is 4 plus 10 plus 72, standing for the Four Correlates, the Ten Philosophers and the Seventy-Two Disciples who carried Confucius’s teaching forward. The original design called for one pine for each of them, turning the courtyard into a roll call of names rather than simple landscaping.

Who designed the temple?

The plans were drawn by Ton That Sa, a well-known artist and architect from Hue, in a classical East Asian idiom. The triple entrance gate was deliberately modelled on the Que Li gate that stands before the Confucius Temple at Qufu in Shandong, China, the philosopher’s birthplace.

What happened to the older provincial Confucian temple?

The Van Mieu at Thanh Chiem moved twice because of river erosion before settling on its final site in 1835. French troops burned it in 1885 and the province rebuilt it in 1890. During the Nghia Hoi uprising the insurgents removed every spirit tablet and installed them at their own temple at Que Son, refusing to let those who had sided with the French perform the rites. Around 1947 the building was demolished under the scorched-earth policy of the resistance.

Is it worth visiting?

Allow twenty to thirty minutes, including the memorial across the road. It suits travellers who want a quiet, free, uncrowded stop a short walk from the old town, and who find it interesting that a temple can be sixty-five years old while the institution behind it is centuries old and was destroyed twice by war. Visitors looking mainly for ancient buildings may prefer the assembly halls inside the ticketed zone.

Updated August 2026. Historical detail comes from the inventory files and research papers of the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, from the researcher Phu Binh writing in Quang Nam newspaper, and from the Quang Nam Antiquities Society’s own 1962 publication. Opening hours are not formally published and the site is managed locally, so treat times as indicative. There is a fuller Vietnamese version of this article at Khổng miếu Hội An.

— Anh Khoa, Hoi An local