📜 About & history
One of the largest mosques in China and the largest in Southwest China, Shadian Grand Mosque was first built around 1503 during the Ming Hongzhi era and expanded in 1763 under the Qing. It was destroyed during the 1975 Shadian Incident and rebuilt in 1981 by the local Hui community. A major 2005 expansion produced a prayer hall of about 17,700 square metres holding up to 10,000 worshippers, arranged symmetrically along a central axis with a grand hall, minarets and a lecture hall. Funded largely by residents of this prosperous Hui town, it long stood as an Arab-style landmark, though its dome was later removed under the state 「Sinicization」 policy.
🕌 Prayer & visiting
Five daily prayers are held, with the main congregational Jumu'ah prayer at midday on Fridays drawing large crowds from Shadian and neighbouring towns.
📍 Address
🇨🇳 Inside China use Baidu or Amap; Google Maps needs a VPN.
🚇 How to reach the mosque
Reached by local buses and taxis from Gejiu, Kaiyuan and Mengzi; Shadian sits at the junction of the three cities. Ask for Shadian Subdistrict.
Shadian is one of China's most devout Hui towns with abundant halal restaurants, Arabic-language signage and Muslim shops, making it very welcoming for Arabic-speaking visitors.
About 20-30 minutes by car from central Gejiu; the mosque dominates the centre of Shadian and is impossible to miss.
The spiritual heart of the Shadian Hui community and a landmark of Islam in Yunnan. To ask a driver to take you here, say: 请带我去沙甸大清真寺