The Tianyi Chamber (Chinese:天一阁; Pinyin:tiānyī gé) is located in Ningbo city. The name refers to the concept of cosmic unity (Tianyi literally "one sky") first described in a Han Dynasty commentary to the Book of Changes. In Chinese alchemy Tianyi is linked to the element of water, thus it was believed by providing a watery name would protect the library against fire damage. It is the oldest existing library in China. Founded in 1561 by Fan Qin during the Ming Dynasty, in its heyday, it boasted a collection of 70,000 volume of antique books.
During the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong visited Tianyi Chamber, he ordered officials to draw schematics of Tianyi Chamber's building plan and book cases as prototype to build several imperial libraries including Wenyuan Chamber in the Forbidden City, Wenjin Chamber in the Mountain Resort to house the Siku Quanshu encyclopedia.
After the Opium War, the British army pirated many history and geography collections from Tianyi Chamber, followed by thefts from local thieves; by 1940, the collection dwindled to less than 20,000 volumes. After the founding of PRC, due to government effort and donation by privated collectors, the collection now recovered somewhat to about 30,000 volumes, mostly rare antique Ming dynasty printed and hand copied volumes.
In 1982, Tianyi Chamber was established by the Chinese authorities as a National Heritage Site. Located near the library is the Qin Family Drama Stage, which is not part of the library, but it is part of the Tianyi Chamber complex.