Originally built in the 11th century, it is the only structure remaining from the Xingshengjiao Temple, and is now enclosed in the Fangta Park.

The pagoda was built between 1068 and 1077,[1] when Songjiang was the largest city in the Shanghai region, a prosperous stop on the Grand Canal between Hangzhou and Suzhou.

[3] Its Northern Song style has not changed despite renovations under the Ming and Qing and, more recently, in the mid- to late 1970s.

[1] It was the tomb of the 11th-century monk Miaoyuan (妙遠) whose ashes—as was common of other masters during the Northern Song—had been placed within the hollow belly of the enlightened Buddha to serve as an object of veneration.

[5] The Square Pagoda is the centerpiece of the modern city's Fangta Park, which was organized in 1980 by Feng Jizhong as one of the first reassertions of the importance of traditional Chinese architecture after the ravages of the Cultural Revolution.