Objective Currently, clustered and living conservation of traditional villages is one of the important ways for rural revitalization in China. Existing research about this topic mainly focuses more on spatial location relationship and external morphology, while neglecting their internal association mechanisms. With vernacular landscape as the cognitive perspective of the value characteristics of village clusters, this research takes the Pilgrimage Route to temples of inspiration on the top of Miaofeng Mountain in the west part of Beijing as a leverage to show how village temples, regional temples of inspiration in sacred mountains, temple fairs and other related beliefs and ceremonial practices are integrated into villagers’ daily life, conceptual ideas and consciousness to form a landscape community, so as to explore the composition and shaping of vernacular landscape.

Methods Based on historic literature and field survey, the landscape and activities of Miaofeng Mountain Temple Fair and five typical villages along the southern pilgrimage routes (Sanjiadian Village, Liulichu Village, Chenjiazhuang Village, Yingtaogou Village, Jiangou Village, etc.) are selected as the research objects. Starting from the three levels of village life around village temple, activities of the temples of inspiration during the Temple Fair around the complex for temples of inspiration and sheds for believers, and values and ideas of the legends of the villages along the pilgrimage route, the research gradually shows the material landscapes of the temples, villages, sheds for believers, and the pilgrimage route involved in the Temple Fair, as well as the non-material landscapes behind the Temple Fair landscape such as the social structure between villages, the practice of belief and rituals, and the themes of the legends and the concepts of material landscape.

Results The research reveals the establishment of vernacular daily life order and the maintenance of vernacular social structure through different spatial levels of landscapes and activities from the village level to the inter-village level. 1) At the village scale, temples such as Guandi Temple, Bodhisatva Temple, Dragon King Temple, Wudaomiao Temple are typical and popular in the Western Hills of Beijing, which manipulate and control different aspects of villagers’ ordinary life. Temples serve as the bonds of contracts between people and God, that it can be reflected by the location relationship and the promises consented. 2) At the inter-village level, during the Temple Fair, different villages are tied together through companies of pilgrims, in their organization settings, the sheds for believers along the pilgrimage route, and the activities and rules in the sheds. Under the influence of the temples of inspirations on Miaofeng Mountain, the villages along the pilgrimage route are integrated into a union in material form, organizational form and festivals and folklore. 3) At the level of legends collected in the aforesaid the legends are classified into three main topics, namely reciprocal cooperation, territorial division, equality of all beings, which reflect the most important ideas on living and survival in this place. Then it can be concluded that, vernacular daily life order is established and vernacular social structure maintained with “efficaciousness” as the driving force, the principle of reciprocity as the bond, and the pilgrimage route and village temples as the carriers. The villages along the pilgrimage route in Miaofeng Mountain are linked together by the concept of “reciprocity and mutual assistance” to form a local landscape community.

Conclusion Belief is the appearance, and the concept of living region is the essence. The value cognition of traditional village clusters should be based on the living characteristics of the survival and life of local people, and should be centered on the daily behavior, activity space, and conceptual consciousness of the village community to form a systematic understanding of value, with such understanding being taken as the basis for the conservation and development of village clusters. This not only expands the theoretical vision of the research on Chinese traditional villages, but also provides scientific basis and practical guidance for the conservation and inheritance of traditional villages.