In 1530, during the late Ming dynasty, an altar was constructed here for the emperor's ritual sacrifice to the sun. The original structure was a rectangular white-stone platform covered with red glaze, with four stairways of nine steps each aligned to the cardinal directions. The altar measured roughly 18 meters on each side and stood about 2 meters high. Upon entering the grounds, the emperor would pass through the Heavenly West Gate and proceed along the Sacred Way to the sun altar -- a processional route designed to transition the ruler from the earthly realm to the cosmic. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt, reopening in 1556, and continued to serve its ceremonial function for centuries until it was abandoned after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.

After decades of neglect, the site was renamed Ritan Park in 1949 and reopened to the public in 1951. The transformation from imperial altar to public green space mirrored the broader reshaping of Beijing under the People's Republic. In the 1970s, as foreign embassies relocated to the surrounding Chaoyang District, the park found itself at the center of a new diplomatic quarter -- an accidental echo of its original purpose as a place where power met ceremony. The 1980s brought further changes: the park was restored and expanded southward with the addition of the Quchi Shengchun garden, and a Sun Mural was installed to commemorate Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up policies.

Ritan -- literally "Altar of the Sun" -- is one of Beijing's four directional altars. To the west sits the Temple of the Moon in Fuchengmen, creating a symmetrical pair that once reflected the cosmological order the emperor was expected to maintain. Today, extensive gardens surround the restored altar, and a small lake offers a pocket of calm amid one of the city's most international neighborhoods. A Sino-Japanese Friendship Monument stands somewhere in the greenery, though it is notoriously difficult to find and poorly marked. The park is free and open around the clock, with restaurants and snack vendors operating within its borders -- a place where the rhythms of daily life play out on ground that once witnessed the most solemn rituals in the Chinese imperial calendar.