Chinese folk religion unfolds not as a single centralized institution, but as a living network of temples, shrines, and sacred landscapes woven into everyday life. Its sacred sites range from grand urban complexes to modest roadside altars, all oriented toward deities, ancestors, and the spirits of place. City God temples (chenghuang miao) honor protective deities who oversee the moral and spiritual order of a locality, while Earth God temples (tudi gong miao) and small neighborhood shrines acknowledge the presence of land spirits who guard fields, streets, and villages. Ancestral halls (zongci or citang) function as ritual centers for lineage worship, making the memory of forebears a tangible presence in the community. In this way, sacred space is not distant or abstract, but intimately tied to family, neighborhood, and city.

Along the coasts and in maritime communities, Mazu temples form another vital strand of this sacred geography. These temples, especially those in Fujian and on Meizhou Island, are revered as centers of devotion to the sea goddess who protects sailors and travelers. Similar patterns appear in temples dedicated to Guan Yu (often honored as Guandi or Guan Sheng Dijun), where values such as loyalty and righteousness are sacralized in the figure of a deified historical hero. Other temples may be devoted to widely venerated deities like Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, or to gods associated with wealth, literature, and other aspects of human aspiration, often sharing space within the same complex. Such sites reveal a pantheon that is at once diverse and deeply integrated into social and moral life.

Sacred mountains and prominent temples in major cities further illustrate how folk practice permeates the broader religious landscape. Mount Tai in Shandong, for example, is revered as a sacred peak with numerous temples and is approached through rituals that blend popular devotion with other religious traditions. In urban centers beyond the mainland, temples such as Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong and Longshan Temple in Taipei serve as important hubs for divination, petitionary prayer, and communal festivals. Overseas Chinese communities have also established significant folk temples, such as Thian Hock Keng in Singapore, which anchor religious identity in new lands while maintaining continuity with ancestral traditions. Across all these settings, Chinese folk religion manifests as a flexible, layered engagement with the sacred, expressed through concrete places where humans, spirits, and ancestors are believed to meet.