Situated in Guangxiao Road of Guangzhou City, the Guangxiao Temple is one of the four famous temples in Guangdong Province with a history over 1,700 years. 

The temple enjoys a very important position in the Buddhist history in China. Many famous monks from home and abroad have come to preach here since the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420).

It was the original location of the residence of Zhao Jiande, the grandson of the king of the Nanyue State in West Han Dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms period (220-265 AD), the classicist Yu Fan lectured here for a full thirty years, hence it's also called 'the Yu Garden'. After the death of Yu Fan, his family had the house donated to be a temple, since then the history of the temple started. It was during the Southern Song Dynasty (1126-1279AD) that it became known as the Guangxiao Temple.

According to the temple record, Buddhists Tanmoyeshe(401 A.D.) and Qiunabiduloue (527 A.D.) sponsored respectively the Buddhist scripture forums in Guangxiao Temple. Since then Buddhist Damo, the first ancestor(527 A.D.) and Buddhist Huineng, the sixth ancestor(676 A.D.) had been here one after the other. Huineng, who later founded his own sect of Buddhism, came to this temple to discuss Buddhist teachings with the monks and was converted. He had his hair shaven in Guangxiao Temple and became a monk. Later monks of the temple built an octagonal 7.8-meter-high stone pagoda to bury his hair. From then on, Guangxiao Temple has been served as a sacred place for the Buddhists both at home and abroad. 

In the temple, there are a lot of historical relics and remains have been well protected, including the Mahavira Hall, Sleeping Buddha statue, bodhi trees and East and West Iron Pagodas.

The square shaped seven-storey East Iron Pagoda was made in 967 in the Five Dynasties. It is 7.69-meter in height, including a 1.34-meter-high stone pedestal and a 6.35-meter-high iron body. When it was first cast, the pagoda was gilded and called the Gilded One Thousand Buddhas Pagoda. Now the gilding has peeled off, revealing the features of the iron body. 

The West Iron Pagoda was cast in 963 in the Five Dynasties and is the only iron pagoda that can be proved to be the oldest in China. It is square and used to have seven storeys. In the last year of the Qing Dynasty some houses in the temple collapsed and destroyed four storeys. Thus only three storeys remain. 

These two iron pagodas are the oldest of their kind in China.