declared by the State Council to be a key protective unit of cultural relics.

The south-facing mausoleum covers an area of over 80,000 square meters, and includes the semi-circle square, the memorial archway, the passway, the gate hall, the tablet pavilion, the sacrificial hall and the coffin chamber. All the buildings in the mausoleum's layout are arranged on a north to south axis. The Ming Dynasty Tomb (Ming Xiao Ling) is located nearby. Visitors cherish the memory of Dr. Sun by paying respects to his remains.

The mausoleum was designed in the shape of an alarm bell, reflecting Dr. Sun's idea of "evoking the mass people to build the Republic of China". The bronze statue of his image at the foot of the mountain is the spire of the bell，and the semi-circle square in front of the entrance resembles the arch top of the bell. The main memorial hall's vault looks like the pendulum. The huge bronze Ding (an ancient cooking vessel with two or three loop handles), a symbol of power in ancient times is seen as the hand of the bell.

A granite memorial archway, or Paifang which is inscribed with two Chinese characters written by Dr. Sun with the meaning of "fraternity", leads to the mausoleum grounds.Immediately behind is a 375-meter-long and 40-meter-wide pathway leading slightly up the hill to the formal gate hall with three arched entrances. On the upper part of the gate is inscribed four Chinese characters written by Dr. Sun, meaning, "the nation is people's nation and everyone shall serve the nation selflessly" (Tian Xia Wei Gong). From here the pathway leads up a wide stairway consisting of 392 steps and 8 terraces to the main memorial hall at the top. From the top, none of the terraces can be seen while from the top, none of the steps can enter the eyes This can be viewed as an engineer reflection of Dr. Sun's philosophy of all people being equal.

Inside the gate hall, there is a pavilion which houses Dr. Sun's memorial tablet, a huge stone stele about 6 meters in height. Behind this and at the end to steps is the main memorial hall, consisting of the sacrificial hall and the coffin chamber. On the eighth terrace there is a pair of ancient Chinese ornamental columns (Huabiao), standing respectively on each side of the 12.6 meters high memorial hall.

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