China city guides

The granite peaks that Chinese landscape painting copies.

Provincial capital and rail gateway to Huangshan.

The imperial capital — Forbidden City, Great Wall, and the country’s best subway.

A vertical city of 32 million where the metro runs through apartment blocks.

Colonial island, seafood, and the closest subtropical coast to Taiwan.

Banyan trees, hot springs and the ancestral home of overseas Chinese.

The Yellow River city that invented beef noodle soup.

Buddhist cave art at the edge of the Gobi, on the old Silk Road.

Cantonese food, 2,200 years of trade, and the Canton Fair.

A fishing village in 1980, a 17-million-person tech city today.

The quiet city on the Macau border, with the world’s longest sea bridge.

Birthplace of Cantonese opera, Wing Chun and the lion dance.

The factory of the world, between Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Karst peaks and the Li River — the landscape on the ¥20 note.

The green city — China’s gateway to Vietnam and ASEAN.

Karst scenery at street level — cycling, rafting and rice fields.

Base for Asia’s largest waterfall and the Miao minority villages.

China’s tropical south — the only place to swim in January.

Hainan’s capital — arcaded streets, volcanoes and coconuts.

Ice city — Russian architecture, minus-25 winters, and an ice festival built from the Songhua River.

The rail crossroads of China, and base for Shaolin Temple.

Longmen Grottoes, peonies, and the first Buddhist temple in China.

Song-dynasty capital, the original night-market city.

Three cities in one, split by the Yangtze, famous for breakfast.

The sandstone pillars that inspired Avatar’s floating mountains.

Hunan spice, Mao’s hometown, and the liveliest night market in central China.

Blue-city of the grasslands — yurts, lamb and the open steppe.

Classical gardens and canals, 25 minutes from Shanghai.

Six-dynasty capital, Ming walls, and the plane-tree boulevards of 1920s China.

Lake Tai, giant Buddha and the Grand Canal.

Canal-era elegance — gardens, morning tea and shaved tofu.

Where the PLA was founded, and the gateway to Mount Lu and Jingdezhen porcelain.

The film and auto city, built by Japanese planners in the 1930s.

Manchu imperial palace and the heavy-industry heartland.

Russian and Japanese colonial seaside, now China’s cleanest northern port.

Desert lakes, rock carvings and a lost Tangut empire.

The plateau gateway — start of the Tibet railway and the Qinghai lake loop.

The eastern end of the Silk Road and the Terracotta Army.

German-built seaside city, and the beer that carries its name worldwide.

The city of springs, and the rail gateway to Mount Tai and Qufu.

Confucius’ hometown — temple, mansion and forest.

The town at the foot of Mount Tai, the holiest of the five sacred peaks.

Art deco riverfront, 1930s plane trees, and the world’s largest metro network.

Coal-country capital with the oldest surviving wooden pagoda in China.

The Yungang Grottoes and a Ming wall built to hold the steppe.

A complete Ming–Qing walled town, and the birthplace of Chinese banking.

Pandas, teahouses and the food capital of the southwest.

The port city whose European concession district survives intact.

At 3,650 m, the highest capital-type city in the world.

Furthest city from any ocean on earth, and the gateway to Xinjiang.

Naxi old town, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and the gateway to Shangri-La.

The eternal spring city, and the hub for all of Yunnan.

Erhai Lake between the Cangshan mountains and Bai villages.

Tibetan plateau at 3,200 m — monasteries, meadows and lakes.

Tropical rainforest and Dai minority culture on the Mekong.

West Lake, tea terraces and the headquarters of Alipay.

The world’s wholesale market — 210,000 suppliers under one roof.

Private-business capital and a coastline of islands.

The oldest working port in China and the largest Buddhist library.

Rice wine, Lu Xun’s hometown, and 2,500 years of canals.