Leifeng Pagoda, Buddhist pagoda near West Lake, Hangzhou, China

Leifeng Pagoda is a five-story, eight-sided tower on Sunset Hill south of West Lake, rebuilt in 2002 in Southern Song style over the excavated original site. Its steel frame carries copper columns, brackets and tiles, and a 16.1-metre spire tops the 71.679-metre structure. A 9.7-metre protective shell of 24 inclined steel columns spans the old brick foundations below.

Qian Chu, king of Wuyue, built the original pagoda between 972 and 977 to enshrine Buddha relics and honour his consort. It was first a seven-storey brick-and-wood tower, reduced to five storeys in the Southern Song, and its wooden galleries burned under Ming attack. The brick core collapsed on 25 September 1924; the present tower, completed on 25 October 2002, stands over the excavated site.

The pagoda's name comes from Leifeng Peak, the highest point of Xizhao Hill, itself named after a man called Lei Jiu who once lived there in a hut. The Song-dynasty tale "Madam White Snake Is Forever Imprisoned at Leifeng Pagoda" made the site known as the place where the monk Fahai subdued the White Lady. The view of the old reddish brick tower at sunset was called "Leifeng in the Evening Glow", one of the Ten Scenes of West Lake.

The rebuilt pagoda stands on the ruins of the old one, and the excavated base and underground chamber are kept beneath a protective cover at the bottom of the structure. Two hydraulic elevators and steel stairs serve the five floors, and two escalators at the entrance carry visitors up to the base. The top of the pagoda is the highest point on the south shore of West Lake.

The underground chamber opened on 11 March 2001 held a gilded silver Ashoka pagoda, a jade boy and a jade Guanyin, and 3,428 coins minted between 175 BC and 960 AD. The silver pagoda encloses a gold container wrapped in thin gold sheet, said to hold the Buddha's hair relic.