Martyrs' shrines or hero shrines (Chinese: 忠烈祠) are buildings used in East Asian hero cults. They are a kind of Ci Shrine, which is a separate building built to praise the spirit of loyalty and righteousness, and to memorialize the martyrs who died for the country. In addition to shrines dedicated to martyrs and loyal subjects, some of them are converted from other buildings, such as Shinto shrines. Since Confucianism advocates the virtues of loyalty and righteousness, the construction of the Temple not only commemorates and enshrines the martyrs who were martyred in the country, but also serves the purpose of moral education.

In China, there were ancestral shrines dedicated to loyal subjects and martyrs, and the names of the shrines were given by the emperor. The Fayuan Temple in Beijing was built by Emperor Taizong of the Tang to commemorate the martyrs who died in his Eastern Expedition to Goguryeo.^{[citation needed]}

This practice of building shrines to honor loyal and martyred soldiers, and then having them named by the monarch, also spread to other regions in the East Asian cultural sphere. After the decline of autocratic power, the hero shrines were maintained or installed by the government.^{[citation needed]}

According to the statistics of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of China in 1942, more than 600 counties and cities in mainland China had already set up loyalty shrines, mostly consisting of the old Confucius Temple, Guandi Temple, City God Temple, Jizo Temple [zh], Dongyue Temple, and even Shuangzhong Temple [zh], Wuhou Temple, and other temples with small temples attached to them for worship. The Capital Loyalty Shrine could not be built because of the Second Sino-Japanese War, even before the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan.^{[citation needed]}

In the People's Republic of China, the title of martyr is bestowed alongside enshrinement to a martyrs' shrine.

Although there were many martyrs' shrines built in China, some collapsed due to disrepair and others were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.^{[citation needed]}

Within mainland China, there exist many martyrs' shrines in which soldiers and other war heroes of China have been enshrined, from conflicts such as the Second Sino-Japanese War. These include:

The ancient martyrs are: Xinzhou Loyalty Ancestral Hall in Shanxi Province, Xinzhou, Lujiazhuang Village, founded at an unknown date, dedicated to Gongsun Pestle and Mortar of the Jin Kingdom in the Spring and Autumn period. The Zhou Wang Temple in Wuxi Yixing, Jiangsu Province, is dedicated to Zhou Di, a Jin Dynasty general who died in the Jinxi expedition.^{[citation needed]}