Qufu, in southwestern Shandong, is the hometown of Confucius and the wellspring of the teaching that shaped East Asia. Its "three Confucian sites" — the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion and the Confucius Cemetery — grew over two and a half millennia into one of the largest architectural ensembles in China, and were among the country's first World Heritage listings. The town keeps itself deliberately low: no building rises above the temple roofs, and the whole visit proceeds at the pace of a courtyard, not a city.
