Dazu is a district of Chongqing Municipality in China, located about 165 kilometers west of the urban area of Chongqing. It is best known as the home of the Dazu Rock Carvings, a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings that were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.
The carvings date back as far as the 7th century AD and depict and are influenced by Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist beliefs. Some are in rock-cut cave shrines in the usual Chinese Buddhist style, while many others are rock reliefs carved into open rock faces. The World Heritage listing comprises 75 protected sites containing some 50,000 statues, with over 100,000 Chinese characters forming inscriptions and epigraphs.
The sites are found on the steep hillsides throughout Dazu District, with the highlights of the rock grotto located on Mount Baoding and Mount Beishan.