Zhaoling Mausoleum, situated on Jiuzong Mountain near Liquan County, 76 kilometers ot the northwest of Xi'an, is the mausoleum of the celebrated second emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tai Zong (Li Shimin). During his rule, there was a famous period known as the “Prosperous Zhen guan Reign”. Constructed in the year 636, the Zhaoling Mausoleum is the most impressive of all the eighteen mausoleums of the Tang emperors in Shaanxi Province. It covers an area of 20,000 acres of land and its circumference is 60 kilometers. While it had preciously been the custom to build mausoleums on the plains and create artificial mounds over them, Tang mausoleums were constructed on natural bills. The Zhaoling Mausoleum is the first to use the technique of mountainside burial. The mausoleum, with the mountain at its center, stretches to the southeast and southwest in a fan-like shape. In the area are 167 mausoleums of the relatives of the royal family and high officials. Zhaoling Mausoleum is the largest of all the mausoleums of the Chinese emperors and is surrounded by more minor mausoleums than any of the others. The construction project of Zhaoling lasted 13 years, and followed Han Dynasty burial customs which included huge subordinate mausoleums to accommodate the children and grandchildren of the emperor.

The Zhaoling Museum was opened to the public in 1978. Following a popular Tang Dynasty custom, more than 80 tombstones were erected on the Zhaoling Mausoleum. By the time of 1949 only 22 were left. These remaining tombstones are on exhibit in the Zhaoling Museum's Forest of Steles. Together with other stone tablets with epitaphs unearthed from some satellite tombs of Zhaoling in recent excavations.

The Zhaoling Mausoleum is also a treasury of valuable art works, satellite tombs at this site contained superb ceramic figurines, wall paintings, and utensils which are also on exhibit at the Zhaoling Museum. Every tombstone here is a superb work of calligraphy, for most of the stones were original and they were not copied or imitated by later generations. The stone tablets of Zhaoling are first class and have been well known ever since ancient times for its semblance of the cream of the calligraphy in the early Tang Dynasty. Many minority people are represented in the pottery figurines, and ceramic camel carrying silk provide evidence of China's active foreign trade during the Tang Dynasty. One of the masterpieces of Tang sculpture, the well-known stone relief called “Six Steeds from the Zhaoling Mausoleum” was part of the sacrificial altar in the mausoleum. Now four of the horses are on exhibit at the Shaanxi Provincial Museum and the other two are in the United States.
The Tang Dynasty was at the zenith of the feudal society in China. Emperor Tai Zong was considered the most capable and able-minded of all. Zhaoling Mausoleum is regarded “No.1 Mausoleum in the world” with honor.