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The pagoda dating back to the times of Balhae is located northeast of Changbai, a town in Jilin province, China. It's original name was lost until a Qing government official in 1908 remarked that the pagoda's lone survival was reminiscent of Linguangdian (靈光殿), the Hall of Numinous Light from the Han dynasty. Since then, the pagoda has been referred to as the Younggwang (pronounced as Linguang in Chinese) pagoda. By the time the pagoda's origin was traced back to the ancient Korean kingdom of Balhae in the early 1980s, the pagoda had already tilted considerably toward the southeast. After undergoing extensive restoration by the Jilin provincial government, the pagoda became included in the Chinese government's "Third Cultural Heritage Sites List" in 1988. The pagoda's height including the decoration on top used to be 12.35 meters before the restoration.

Made in the shape of a multi-storied brick building, the Younggwang pagoda originally had a tomb underneath. There was an entrance to the underground grave that had passages and a reliquary (地宮), while the pagoda's five-story main body topped with decorations stood above ground. The pagoda's empty insides with an open arched dome ceiling on each story is a typical construction built above a tomb like the tomb of Princess Jeonghyo (貞孝公主) or the pagoda at Madida (馬滴達). Applying the techniques of leaning pillars and gradually shortening their length for higher stories gives the pagoda a solid, balanced look. Such techniques are proof that they used to be exchanged by Balhae with the Tang dynasty of China as well as the ancient Korean kingdom Silla, making the pagoda an invaluable source for studying Balhae heritage and cultural exchange in East Asia.

Reference: "Balhae Culture 2" (Jeongto Publishing House, 2006)