5 most expensive abandoned palaces in China, Shocking Thousand Year Old Constructions

Have you ever stopped in front of a massive unfinished building and wondered, what happened? What great dreams were born here and why were they abandoned halfway? In China, there are buildings that stop halfway. But these buildings have a magnificent beauty, as if stepping out of the pages of an ancient book. They leave people in awe because of the magical blend of ancient Chinese style and modern ambition. There are works that are thousands of years old and have existed for centuries, proving the superior intelligence of the ancient Chinese people. Imagine a massive palace with roofs carved with dragons and phoenixes, golden walls shining like sunlight, but standing still like a forgotten dream, or a towering tower reaching up to the blue sky but never completed. These buildings not only leave you stunned by their magnificence, but also make you wonder, why are they still unfinished? This is the story of buildings that make you stop to admire, even though they are not finished. They are so beautiful that they are like a slice of time standing still. Each building is a mystery, an unfulfilled dream, and a piece of history waiting to be told. And now, let's explore five unfinished but breathtakingly beautiful buildings in China. Yulin Yuntian Palace, in the middle of Yulin City, Guangxi Province, China, is an architectural work that amazes people. Yulin Yuntian Palace was built with the ambition to become a cultural and tourist symbol of the region. Yuntian Palace is not only a palace, but also a story full of mystery and unfinishedness for more than two decades. Construction began in the 1990s. Yulin Yuntian Palace was shaped as an iconic building with a total investment cost of nearly 3 billion yuan. The project includes two main buildings, a 21-story building with a height of 108 meters, and a six-story annex building. In particular, the annex is home to a giant bronze Buddha statue, 33 meters high, weighing more than 600 tons, crafted from more than 1,000 pieces of bronze with a sparkling gold-plated surface. This project was once expected to become a modern architectural wonder combined with ancient Chinese beauty, a place where culture and beliefs converge. However, its journey took an unexpected turn. The question of the origin and investor of Yuntian Palace is still a big mystery. There is a hypothesis that the project was invested by Yang Zikang, a legendary figure in Yulin. But much evidence leans towards Taiwanese businessmen. This is demonstrated by the use of rare cinnamon wood from Alishan, Taiwan, as the main material in the wooden architecture. In addition, many of the staff here have a distinctive Taiwanese accent, and the artifacts displayed inside are all rich in Taiwanese culture. Perhaps Yuntian Palace was once an ambitious dream, where investors wanted to create a work that blends classical Chinese culture with modernity. More than 20 years after the start of construction, Yuntian Palace has yet to be completed. Currently, only about 20 percent of the area, corresponding to the first six floors of the annex, is open to visitors. Meanwhile, the main building with 21 floors remains closed as a symbol of unfinishedness and unanswered questions. The cause of this delay has never been clearly announced. There are rumors that financial difficulties or legal issues have caused the project to fall into a state of inaction. This only adds to the mystery and curiosity of the public. Today, Yuntian Palace is open to visitors with tickets ranging from 150 to 180 yuan. However, the number of visitors is not large. Most of them come from other provinces, while local people are still not interested in this work. Those who have visited cannot help but be impressed by the magnificent beauty of the palace. From the meticulous wood carvings, the massive stone pillars, to the giant gilded Buddha statue. But it is also the unfinished and blocked areas that make them regret. With more than 1,100 rooms but less than one-fifth open, Yuntian Palace is like a big dream that has been held back. People wonder what is being kept inside those sealed rooms. Only when this palace is completed can it truly be worthy of its name as a symbol of Yulin. But will that day come, or will Yuntian Palace forever be a castle halfway through a dream? The Dushan Shuishui Tower, also known as the Shuishui Tower, is a unique architectural structure in Dushan County, Guizhou Province. From afar, one cannot help but be amazed by its grandeur, a seemingly perfect masterpiece. The building even claims three Guinness World Records. The tallest glazed ceramic building in the world, the tallest aquatic structure of the Buyei and Miao ethnic groups, and the largest archway in the world. However, the Shuishui Tower's most prominent title is the most expensive unfinished building in China. Initially, the Shuishui Tower was expected to become a cultural symbol of the region, likened to the Petala Palace of Guizhou and a treasure of Dushan County. However, instead of becoming a source of pride, the building was listed as one of the 10 ugliest buildings in China and is often mentioned as a negative example in teaching materials. The Shuishui Tower covers an area of 60,000 square meters and is 99.9 meters high, with a colorful ceramic glazed exterior wall surface. The view from below is truly breathtaking. The original idea of the building was to be built entirely with a wooden frame and traditional mortise and tenon techniques without using any screws. However, with a height of nearly 100 meters and a large construction area, the wooden structure could not meet the requirements, so the building finally had to use a reinforced concrete frame with a large number of classic elements. From then on, Shuishui began to become an unrealistic bubble dream. Dushan County, where the building is located, only escaped the title of a poor county in 2020, with a total annual financial revenue of only about 1 billion yuan. However, the county spent 200 million yuan on this world-class project. However, the reason it ranks high among unfinished projects is not just because of the amount of money spent, but because it is one of a series of grandiose projects built in the area. Dushan County has only one street and eight towns, but has borrowed up to 40 billion yuan to build large-scale projects. Passing through this place, one can see abandoned buildings at every corner. Every five steps there is a dilapidated building, and every 10 steps there is an empty house. Anyone who visits Dushan County cannot help but be amazed by this scene. The county spent 2.2 billion yuan to build a replica of the Forbidden City, named the Ancient Country of Wulian, with an architectural style imitating the Forbidden City in Beijing. In addition, they plan to invest 12 billion yuan in the Dushan legendary film and television city, City of Dreams project, which was designed to be twice the size of Zhejiang Hengtian film and television city. At that time, it was considered the largest film and television project in the country, with the expectation of becoming a cultural and tourist icon for Dushan County. However, looking back, this huge investment of more than 40 billion yuan could have been used for more useful purposes. Instead, Dushan is now left with unfinished projects and mounting debts. The Shanghai Wujia World Trade Center is also known as the Chinese Pentagon, similar to the famous Pentagon of the United States, the U.S. government office building in Washington, the largest administrative center in the world. The Shanghai Wujia is also designed as a grand symbol and has the meaning of protecting the safety of administrative agencies. However, few people know that China has built a project that imitates this design and scale in Shanghai. Construction of the Wujia World Trade Center began in 2003 with a huge design and a bold name, and along with a strong marketing campaign, the project quickly attracted great attention from the public. Expected to be completed in 2009, the building has a construction area of up to 500,000 square meters and was promoted as a symbol of development. Just imagine how shocking the appearance of a 750-acre commercial complex in Huinan Pudong in 2003 would have been. For comparison, Nanjiang Impression City, the largest commercial area in Shanghai today, is only 340,000 square meters, equivalent to about 508 acres. However, the project remains unfinished to this day, becoming one of the most notable unfinished projects in Shanghai. The Shanghai Wujia World Trade Center was once expected to be the largest and most modern commercial complex in Shanghai, but it was never put into use due to many initial problems. Wujia was planned as a Yiwu-style commodity market complex. Later, the idea of developing it into a Koreatown was changed. In the latest plan, the project was positioned as an agricultural trade center. However, regardless of the business purpose, after the project was completed in 2009, most of the shops inside remained empty. A few shops that had been in operation for a short time also closed down one by one, leaving only one service department in operation. The investment of more than 30 billion was eventually wasted, turning Wujia Shanghai from a symbol of hope into a Shanghai Golden Land building. The Shanghai Golden Land building is one of the longest stalled projects in Shanghai and also the most primely located unfinished project. When searching for this building on the map, it still shows the status as under construction. In fact, the land plot of Golden Land was sold 23 years ago, in 1999. The wealthy Indonesian businessman Wang Hengshin bought the land for 300 million yuan, a very low price at that time in the Pudong area. In 2004, the project officially started with an investment of 800 million yuan, expected to be completed and opened in 2008. However, due to lack of funding from the developers, the project remains unfinished to this day. Located in Lujiazui, Shanghai's busiest business district, the building has become a famous unfinished symbol of the city. The government has put the project up for auction many times, with the starting price reduced from 17 billion to 7 billion yuan, but there are still no buyers. Today, the Golden Land building is surrounded by rubble and construction waste accumulated over the years, overgrown with grass and trees, its desolate image creating a strong contrast with modern structures such as the Shanghai Tower, the Jin Mao Tower, and the World Financial Center, the symbols of Lujiazui. This contrast makes the Golden Land an ironic and thought-provoking symbol of the unfinished ambitions in the heart of the prosperous city. The Eifang Palace, famous as the largest and most expensive unfinished building in Chinese history, is not only a project from 2,000 years ago, but also a palace considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, praised by archaeologists. Contrary to some misconceptions, the Fang Palace that Xiang Yu burned down was actually the Qin Dynasty's Xianyang Palace, not the Eifang Palace, and there is no sign that this palace was ever burned down. Qin Shi Huang is famous for four great works, the Great Wall, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the Qin Jidao, and the Eifang Palace. Each work is a precious heritage of Chinese culture. In 1994, the Eifang Palace was included in the list of preserved ancient works by the United Nations, one of the great wonders of By 2003, this work attracted up to 500,000 visitors per day, creating a significant source of revenue. So why is the Eifang Palace called an unfinished work? After the Qin Dynasty unified China, Qin Shi Huang began to build this palace, but he died suddenly during a trip, causing the project to stagnate. His successor, Qin Er Shihu Hai, sent all the workers to build the mausoleum for Qin Shi Huang in Lishan, and from then on, the palace was abandoned. If it still existed, it would have been worth over $1,392,000,000. Even though 2,000 years have passed, the Eifang Palace remains a symbol of the greatest unfinished project in history, attracting millions of tourists. Through this video, we have explored the most expensive unfinished projects in China. Did they surprise you? These are projects that cost a fortune, but were never completed. If these projects were completed, would you be willing to travel to see them?