Pangu or Pan Gu (also sometimes spelled Peng Gu and P’an-ku) (Chinese: 盤古; pinyin: Pángǔ ; PAN-koo) is a primordial being and creation figure in Chinese mythology and in Taoism. According to legend, Pangu separated heaven and earth, and his body later became geographic features such as mountains and flowing water.

The earliest known writer to record the myth of Pangu is believed to have been Xu Zheng during the Three Kingdoms period. However, his name was found in a tomb predating the Three Kingdoms period.

In the beginning, there was nothing and the universe was in a featureless, formless primordial state. This primordial state coalesced into a cosmic egg over the course of about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu inside the cosmic egg symbolizes Taiji. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head. Pangu began creating the world: he separated yin from yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the earth (murky yin) and the sky (clear yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the sky. With each day, the sky grew ten feet (3.0 meters) higher, the earth ten feet thicker, and Pangu ten feet taller.

In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the Four Holy Beasts (四靈獸), the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon. There are many different legends about Pangu's creation of the world, with some saying that this task took 18,000 years, while others say that he lived for millions of years.

One version of the legend says that at the centre of Pangu's celestial realm stood a mountain he called Seven Treasures Peak, which is where he built a home called Jade Terrace of the Mysterious City. Far away resided the Jade Maiden, who he saw wandering through the great limitless one day. He invited her to come live with him at Seven Treasures Peak. Their union gave birth to the Emperor of the East and Empress of the West as well as the Celestial Lord, who then created the Terrestrial Lord, who in turn gave birth to the Lord of Humanity. Other versions of the legend state that he had no direct offspring and that instead his body transformed after his death into all forms of life in the universe.

When Pangu died, his breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the Sun; his right eye, the Moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, precious jewels; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals.

In other versions of the story, his body turned into the mountains.

Three main elements describe the origin of the Pangu myth. The first is that the story is indigenous and was developed or transmitted through time to Xu Zheng. Senior Scholar Wei Juxian states that the Pangu story is derived from stories during the Western Zhou dynasty. He cites the story of Zhong (重) and Li (黎) in the "Chuyu (楚語)" section of the ancient classics Guoyu. In it, King Zhao of Chu asked Guanshefu (觀射父) a question: "What did the ancient classic "Zhou Shu (周書)" mean by the sentence that Zhong and Li caused the heaven and earth to disconnect from each other?" The "Zhou Shu" sentence he refers to is about an earlier person, Lü Xing (呂刑), who converses with King Mu of Zhou. King Mu's reign is much earlier and dates to about 1001 to 946 BC. In their conversation, they discuss a "disconnection" between heaven and earth.