In 1974 farmers digging a well east of Xi'an hit a piece of fired clay. What they had found was an army of several thousand life-sized soldiers, buried in formation for more than two thousand years to guard a dead emperor. It is one of the great archaeological discoveries of the century — and a sight that a surprising number of visitors find underwhelming, entirely because of how they are walked through it. This guide fixes that.
In this guide
1. Do the pits in reverse
| Order | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First | Pit 3 | The small command post — officers, a chariot, the army's headquarters |
| Second | Pit 2 | Cavalry and archers, partly unexcavated, with individual figures in cases at eye level |
| Third | Bronze chariots hall | Two half-size bronze chariots of astonishing precision. Most tours skip it. Don't |
| Last | Pit 1 | The vast hall of massed infantry — the image everyone knows, saved for the end |
- Why it matters: Pit 1 is overwhelming. See it first and Pits 2 and 3 read as leftovers; see it last and the day builds.
- Pit 2 is where you meet individuals — the kneeling archer with the tread pattern still visible on his sole, a cavalryman with his horse, a general. This is where the faces stop being a crowd.
- The bronze chariots are the technical marvel of the site: umbrella mechanisms, working chains, harnessing detail, cast in the 3rd century BC. They are in a separate hall and constantly under-visited.
2. What to actually look at
- No two faces are the same. Heads, hands and ears were finished individually on mass-produced bodies — an assembly line that still made individuals.
- Rank is readable from the armour, the headdress and the height: generals are the tallest figures in the pits.
- They were painted. Bright lacquer and mineral pigments that flake within minutes of exposure — the reason much of the site is deliberately left buried until conservation catches up.
- Look for the broken ones. Pit 1's rear sections show the figures as they are found: shattered, then reassembled over years in the on-site workshop, which you can see working.
- The emperor's actual tomb mound is a wooded hill a short distance away, unexcavated. The army was only the outer guard — the tomb itself has never been opened.
- Craftsmen's names are stamped on some figures: a quality-control system, and the only names that survive from the workforce.
3. Tickets, transport and timing
- Book online in advance with your passport, as at every major Chinese site; the ticket is tied to the document and it is scanned at entry.
- It is about an hour east of central Xi'an. A private car makes the day; the tourist buses are cheap and slow.
- Go at opening or after 15:00. The middle of the day is when every coach group is in Pit 1 at once.
- Allow three hours on site, plus travel. Four if you take the chariots hall slowly.
- The site is large and mostly outdoors between halls — shade is limited and Xi'an summers are hot (when to visit).
- Beware the "museum" stops that budget day tours bolt on: jade and lacquer showrooms are the business model, not the itinerary.
Our Xi'an journey walks the pits in this order — with a guide who explains what you're looking at, and no shopping stops on the way home. See Xi'an & the Terracotta Army (from US$880).
4. The quieter tomb nobody mentions
- Hanyangling — the tomb of a Han emperor, north of Xi'an, and the best second archaeological site in the region.
- You walk over the excavation on glass floors, with the burial pits lit beneath your feet — a completely different experience from looking down into a hangar.
- The figures are miniature, about a third life size, originally clothed in silk with articulated wooden arms that have long rotted away. Strange, intimate and beautiful.
- It is quiet. Often a tenth of the visitors, on the same day.
- Do both if you have a full day; do Hanyangling instead if you have seen the warriors before.
5. Fitting it into Xi'an
- One full day covers the army; the city walls, the Muslim Quarter and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda fill the second (Xi'an in 2 days).
- Xi'an sits on the classic route between Beijing and Chengdu or Shanghai, three to six hours by bullet train (rail guide).
- Eat afterwards, not before — roujiamo and biang biang noodles in the Muslim Quarter are the right end to the day (what to eat in China).
- Where it fits in a longer trip: see China in 7, 10 or 14 days.
The difference here is entirely the storytelling. Same pits, same barriers — a guide who knows them turns statues into people. Tell us your dates. Free to plan. Design my trip →