Essential
Beijing
Beijing has been the capital of China, on and off, since Kublai Khan built Dadu here in 1267. The consequence is a city planned as a…
Where to go in China
China has 22 provinces, five autonomous regions and four direct-administered municipalities. You will not see them all. These guides tell you what each place is genuinely good at, how many days it deserves and how to reach the next stop.
Essential
Shanghai
Shanghai is the easiest major Chinese city for a foreign visitor: the most English, the best international food, the most walkable historic…
Essential
Xi'an
Under its Tang dynasty name of Chang'an, Xi'an was the largest city in the world — a million people inside a walled grid, the terminus of…
Essential
Chengdu
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, a city of 21 million in a fertile basin under near-permanent cloud, and the place most travellers say…
Guilin & Yangshuo
Karst is limestone that has been dissolving in rain for 300 million years, leaving behind isolated towers, sinkholes and caves. Guangxi has…
Zhangjiajie
Zhangjiajie's quartz-sandstone pillars — around 3,000 of them, some over 200 m tall — formed as water eroded a plateau along vertical…
Hangzhou
Hangzhou was the capital of the Southern Song from 1138 to 1276, and Marco Polo — whether or not he actually went — described it as the…
Suzhou
Suzhou grew rich on silk and canals, and its wealthy retired officials spent that money building gardens. Between the 11th and 19th…
The Great Wall
Most of what visitors see was built by the Ming dynasty between the 14th and 17th centuries — brick and stone battlements running along…
Yunnan
Yunnan borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam and rises from 76 m in the tropical south to over 6,700 m on the Tibetan frontier. It contains…
Tibet
Foreign nationals cannot travel independently in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Every foreign visitor needs a Tibet Travel Permit, which can…
Chongqing
Chongqing is a municipality of 32 million people built across steep hills at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. Nothing is…
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is part of China but operates as a separate customs, immigration and currency territory. For a traveller this has concrete…
Datong & Pingyao
Shanxi is the province most travellers skip and most China specialists return to. It was wealthy twice — first as the frontier region where…
Huangshan
Huangshan is the mountain in the paintings. Granite peaks rising abruptly from a valley, pines growing horizontally out of rock faces, and…
Xinjiang & Kashgar
Xinjiang is a sixth of China's land area — larger than Iran — and shares borders with eight countries. Historically it is the Tarim Basin…
Harbin
Harbin grew out of the Chinese Eastern Railway, built by Russia in the 1890s, and for decades had a large Russian population — including…
Guangzhou & the Pearl River Delta
Guangzhou — Canton to the 19th-century traders — has been China's principal southern port since the Tang dynasty, and was for a long period…
Nanjing & Qingdao
Nanjing The "southern capital" was the seat of the early Ming dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Republic of China. It is a…
Hainan & Sanya
Hainan sits at the same latitude as Hawaii, has genuine white-sand beaches and coral, and functions as China's domestic tropical resort. It…