Guinness World Records certification of the statue of Maitreya in the Lama Temple Beijing Temple of Confucius, the second-largest Confucian temple in China, was built in 1302, and imperial officials used it to pay their formal respects to Confucius until 1911. The compound was enlarged twice, once during the Ming dynasty and again during the Qing; it now occupies roughly 20,000 square meters (220,000 sq ft).