City guide · Anhui
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Tang Xianzu wrote that to reach Huizhou is to fall in love without knowing why or how. The old lanes, old houses, old bridges and old wells of this small town in the southern hills weave it all together.
Traveller note — 'An Abiding Love, a Dream of Huizhou'
I first heard of Hongcun years ago, in a travel magazine. The ink-wash walls and tiles stayed in my mind, and the idea of this ox-shaped village kept pulling me towards it.
Traveller note — 'Like an Ink Painting, Falling for Its Light and Shade'
Hongcun has been photographed so often that you will arrive feeling you have already seen it — and then the view opens up anyway. It is a cluster of white-walled, black-tiled Hui houses gathered around a half-moon pond and a long flat lake, set against green hills, and the reflections in the water do most of the work. It has been called 'the village inside a Chinese painting' for so long the phrase has gone flat; standing at Moon Pond before the crowds arrive, it stops being a cliché.
What lifts Hongcun above the other pretty villages is its plan. In the twelfth century its founders, reading the site through feng shui, imagined the whole settlement as an ox: the hills as its head, two ancient trees as horns, a winding water channel as its intestines, Moon Pond as its stomach and South Lake as its belly. Four hundred years later the water still runs to every house, cooling the lanes, feeding the kitchens and turning each alley into a corridor of reflections.
The village is also an accident of preservation. Because it sat deep in the hills of Yixian county, cut off by the very terrain that kept the Hui merchants' money in their home towns, Hongcun kept its Ming and Qing houses almost intact — which is why UNESCO listed it, with neighbouring Xidi, as a World Heritage Site in 2000, and why film-makers, Ang Lee among them, keep coming back.
The catch is that everyone knows. Hongcun is a top-tier sight, and from mid-morning to late afternoon the lanes fill with tour groups and art students with sketchpads. It is small, so the fix is easy: come in the early morning or late evening, or sleep inside the walls. One night buys you both ends of the day, which is the difference between visiting Hongcun and actually seeing it.
Hongcun
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
The half-moon pool at the heart of the village, built deliberately as a half circle to echo the idea that a full moon must wane. Ringed by the finest Hui houses, it is the image everyone comes for — and at dawn, with mist on the water, it delivers.
The long, flat lake on the village's southern edge, built in imitation of the West Lake at Hangzhou, with the arched bridge that gives Hongcun its most photographed view. Nanhu Academy sits on its northern bank, a fine old private school.
The 1855 mansion of a salt merchant, and the grandest house in the village: nine courtyards, 60 rooms, 136 wooden columns and carving on almost every surface, including a celebrated 'hundred boys' panel above the central doorway. This is the one interior not to skip.
The channel that runs to every door — the 'ox intestines' of the village plan. Follow it and you thread the whole settlement, past washing stones, kitchens and the little stone bridges that cross it. It is the best way to see Hongcun as a working place rather than a set.
Whitewashed walls, black-tiled roofs and stepped horse-head gables, with carved beams and stone doorframes — the Hui building style at its most complete. The lanes are still lived in, so the best thing to do is simply wander without a map.
Tachuan, 2 km away, is a classic spot for autumn colour and spring rapeseed; the Wooden Keng bamboo forest, a Crouching Tiger location, is 4 km out. Xidi, the other UNESCO Hui village, is 30 minutes' drive down the road.
Suggested itineraries
The one-day plan is the village on foot. The three-day route pairs Hongcun with Xidi, Tachuan and the Wooden Keng bamboo forest, staying in the village.
The classic walking loop, from South Lake through to the ancient trees.
Enter from the south and start at South Lake — the arched bridge, the reflections, and Nanhu Academy on the north bank. Then head north to the Hui houses of Jingde Hall and Wang Daxie's former residence.
Follow the water channel into the village, and you arrive at Moon Pond, the heart of Hongcun.
Stops: South LakeNanhu AcademyJingde HallMoon Pond
From Moon Pond, work through the old halls in turn: Lexu Hall, Jixiu Hall, the marvellous Chengzhi Hall, Deyi Hall, Shuren Hall and Taoyuanju.
Finish under the twin ancient trees — a 500-year-old maple-poplar and ginkgo, said to bring good fortune — and take the last light back at the water.
Stops: Lexu HallJixiu HallChengzhi HallDeyi HallShuren HallTaoyuanjuRed and White ancient trees
The unhurried Hui-country loop, based in the village itself.
Arrive from Tunxi via Shexian and Tangyue, where the great memorial archways stand, then settle into a guesthouse inside the village.
Give the village its morning and its evening — the sights by day, and the water at first light and dusk, when the coaches have gone and Hongcun goes quiet.
Stops: ShexianTangyue archwaysHongcunMoon PondSouth Lake
Travel the short hop to Xidi, the other UNESCO Hui village, whose courtyards and lanes are quieter than Hongcun's. Then, in season, take in Tachuan for its autumn colour or spring rapeseed, and the Wooden Keng bamboo forest, the bamboo-sea location from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Distances are tiny — Xidi is about 30 minutes, Tachuan 2 km, Wooden Keng 4 km — so all three fit a single day if you start early.
Stops: XidiTachuanWooden Keng bamboo forest
Sights
One ¥104 ticket, valid three days, covers the main sights and the village guide. Keep it with you; it is checked inside the village.
Landmark · On the ticket
The crescent pool at the geographic and emotional centre of Hongcun, and the 'ox stomach' of the village plan. Local tradition holds that the site's natural spring could only be shaped as a half-moon, echoing the idea that 'a full moon wanes, a flower that blooms will fade' — which is why the pond is famously asymmetric. Ringed by the finest surviving Hui houses, it appears on stamps, paintings and, endlessly, in photographs.
Tip The pond is small and the crowd is real. Come at first light, or linger after the tour groups move on in the late afternoon. The photograph everyone wants needs both the stillness and the emptiness, and only the early morning gives you both.
Landmark · On the ticket
The long, flat lake along the village's southern edge, the 'ox belly' of the plan, built in the Ming dynasty in imitation of Hangzhou's West Lake. The arched bridge across it, with the Hui houses and hills behind, is the view that defines Hongcun; the lake is at its most beautiful with no wind, when the whole village drops into the water as a reflection.
Tip Walk the full length of the bank rather than stopping at the bridge — the far end is usually emptier, and the reflections hold there longer. On a still night the pavilions and lanterns glow on the surface, which is a different picture entirely.
Historic house · On the ticket
Built around 1855 as the residence of the salt merchant Wang Dinggui, Chengzhi Hall is the grandest house in Hongcun and one of the finest surviving large Hui dwellings. It covers about 2,100 m² across nine courtyards, 60 rooms and 136 wooden columns, with a pond and a well inside so that, as the saying goes, you need not leave the house for water. Above the central doorway sits the celebrated 'Hundred Boys at the Lantern Festival' wood carving.
Tip Do not rush the carvings — the 'hundred boys' panel, the four 'fisherman, woodcutter, farmer, scholar' columns and the opera scenes on the brackets are the reason this house is famous. A local guide (included with your ticket at the entrance) brings the details out.
Historic school · On the ticket
A large private academy on the north bank of South Lake, formed in 1814 by merging six earlier village schools into one. Its halls had set roles — a lecture hall, a shrine to Confucius, a room for beginners, a library and a viewing pavilion over the lake — and its scale shows how seriously the merchant village took education. The classic view of South Lake is from its front steps.
Tip Stand on the front terrace and look back at the lake and the arched bridge — it is the best composed view in the village, and quietest right after opening.
Ancestral hall · On the ticket
Lexu Hall, on the north side of Moon Pond, is the Wang family ancestral hall built in the early fifteenth century, with Ming-style beams, brackets and carved spandrels of real quality. It forms one of the 'eight sights of Hongcun', the pond-and-lotus view that has been painted for centuries.
Tip It is small and central, so it is easy to pass twice. Look up — the roof structure is the thing to see, not the furniture.
Historic houses · On the ticket
Two of the smaller, subtler houses that explain why Hongcun is more than its two ponds. Shuren Hall, from 1862, sits on a six-sided plot for luck and keeps a small running-water pond inside; Deyi Hall, from 1815, is a classic Hui courtyard house with sixteen lotus-leaf doors, a pond fed by the water channel and a garden that has earned it the nickname 'the open-air flower hall'.
Tip These houses reward slow looking — the water, the planting and the sight-lines are deliberate. If you have time for only one smaller house, choose Deyi Hall for its courtyard and its garden.
Landmark · Free
Two 500-year-old trees at the head of the village — a maple-poplar and a ginkgo, known locally as the red and white trees — which in the ox-shaped plan are the animal's horns, and which locals regard as symbols of good fortune. They mark the traditional end of a Hongcun walk.
Tip Pair them with the walk up Leigang Hill just beyond, from which you can photograph the whole village laid out below — a five-minute climb from the back street.
Eating
Hui cooking is rich, savoury and strongly flavoured — lots of cured pork, bamboo, river fish and wild vegetables. The village turns out excellent home cooking, and wild spring greens appear on menus in season.
The village's signature snack, sold hot from the oven all along the lanes. The best is the small one stuffed with preserved mustard greens and pork — crisp, savoury and made to be eaten on the spot, walking.
Anhui's most famous dish: mandarin fish salted and left to ferment briefly, then braised so the flesh stays firm and the flavour turns deep and unmistakable. Rich, pungent and worth trying once at a proper village table.
Spring bamboo and ham or cured pork slow-braised together — the dish that sums up the Hui countryside, where every household dries its own meat and each hillside supplies its own shoots.
Wild shrimp from the ponds and streams around the village, cooked quickly in oil until they are crisp and sweet. Simple, local and a good counterpoint to the heavier braises.
A Hui-country speciality — eggs dry-fried with the shredded bark of Acanthopanax, a local herb, which gives them a faintly medicinal, savoury note. Not on every menu, but a genuine local taste.
A Yixian tradition: in the depths of winter, households sun-dry blocks of tofu until they firm up and take on a deep, umami flavour. Served as a side, and a taste you will not find in the cities.
Where to eat
Most eating in Hongcun is home-style, in family restaurants whose menu is what the hills are giving that month. Ask what is fresh rather than reading too closely.
Hui cooking · By Moon Pond
A Hui restaurant right beside Moon Pond, with honest cooking, fair prices and one thing no one else has: the view. Eat by the water in the late afternoon and you get the pond as the light goes. It is also the one establishment here famously filmed for the documentary series A Bite of China.
Home cooking · Mid-range
Run by a couple who both cook well, this small place serves the Hui and country dishes you actually want: fragrant, unpretentious, generous. It is the sort of family kitchen that makes village eating in Hongcun worth planning a dinner around.
Snack · Cheap
Every few metres along the lanes, a stove and a pile of small baked cakes. The preserved-mustard-and-pork ones are the best; buy two, eat them hot, and come back for more. They also keep, so they make a good gift back home.
Snack · Old shop
An old-fashioned little shop selling a simple, natural baked cake — no grease, no fuss, just a clean flavour and an old-fashioned setting. Worth finding between the bigger sights for a light stop.
Home cooking · Full board
Most guesthouses in the village will cook dinner and breakfast for their guests, and this is arguably the best way to eat in Hongcun: seasonal mountain vegetables, wild greens in spring, wild game in winter, served in a courtyard that is centuries old. Ask when you check in.
Sleeping
Stay inside the village if you can — it saves re-buying the ticket, and it is the only way to have the lanes at dawn and dusk. Prices rise sharply at holidays; book ahead.
Heritage guesthouse · from ¥100
A preserved Qing mansion from 1860, on the main water channel, converted in 1994 into the village's first genuinely characterful guesthouse. Carved old balconies, wooden walls, shutters and antique carved beds give it real weight — staying here feels like sleeping inside the history rather than beside it.
Hostel-style · from ¥60
The village's only international-hostel-style option, with a big flower-filled courtyard, dorms, singles, standards and family suites. The owner is a long-time outdoorsman with a stash of walking routes, and evenings often turn into tea, music and conversation in the common room. The sociable choice.
Old and new wings · from ¥100
Split between a new wing of en-suite doubles, triples and a big-bed couple's room, and an old wing of five rooms with century-old carved beds. Both have private bathrooms, TV, air-conditioning and hot water. A good choice if you want the old-house atmosphere with modern plumbing.
Hui-style inn · from ¥128
A Hui-style inn with simple, classical decoration, offering big-bed, twin, triple and dormitory rooms, all with TV, private bathroom, air-conditioning and 24-hour hot water. It has its own restaurant and private dining rooms seating over a hundred, so it is a solid base for a group or a family.
Hostel · from ¥65
Two late-Ming and early-Qing houses converted into a hostel, with original old timber and doors throughout — the second courtyard is a heritage house in its own right. Free wifi, laundry, fridge, books and help with onward train and bus tickets, plus a small bar. The cheapest atmospheric bed in the village.
Getting around
Hongcun has no station or airport of its own. You arrive through Huangshan, then it is road all the way — and once inside the village, you walk.
The nearest airport is Huangshan Tunxi (TXN), beside the gateway town of Tunxi, about 1 hour 20 minutes from the village by road. Connections are mostly domestic, so many travellers fly into a bigger hub and arrive by high-speed rail instead.
Hongcun has no railway station; the nearest is Huangshan North, about an hour away by road. The old Huangshan station, in Tunxi, serves the traditional lines and is the historical gateway.
Huangshan North is the modern, fast arrival and the one most travellers use. From there, a car or the scenic-area shuttle drops you at the village gate in about an hour — there is no need to go into Tunxi first.
The classic route: from Tunxi's tourist bus station, direct services run to Hongcun in about 1.5 hours, passing Qiyun Mountain and Xidi on the way.
If you are based in Yixian town, the local bus to Hongcun runs every 20 minutes, takes 20 minutes and costs ¥2. From Xidi, the tourist bus between Tunxi and Hongcun stops briefly, with eight services a day.
Once inside, everything is on foot: the village is small, flat and easy to cover in an hour, and walking is the only vehicle allowed. For Tachuan, Xidi, the Wooden Keng bamboo forest and Leigang Hill, a local bus, a hired car or a bicycle all work — distances are 2 to 5 km.
Shopping
Yixian's specialities are the point here — tea, embroidery, tofu and pastries. Buy from the village shops and stalls; the prices are usually fairer than in the scenic-area gateway shops.
One of China's great green teas, flat-pressed and unmistakable — 'two sharp tips, neither scattered nor curled'. Grown in the hills around Huangshan, and much loved for its mild, clean taste.
An old Huizhou craft, mostly bead embroidery — small beads stitched into slippers, bags, wall panels and ornaments. It flourished in the Ming and Qing and nearly died out since; the pieces sold in Hongcun keep it alive.
The Yixian winter speciality: blocks of tofu sun-dried until firm and deeply savoury. Buy it cured and sliced, ready to eat, and it travels well.
The village's edible souvenirs: baked cakes, rice-flour pastries and nutty sweets, sold in the lanes and packed for travel. Buy one box to eat on the road and one to take home.
Practical
Hongcun is small and the staffed English help is limited. Save these before you need them.
| Emergency (police / ambulance / fire) | 110 · 120 · 119 |
|---|---|
| Hongcun town health centre | Hongcun town, Yixian, Huangshan · 0559-5541013 |
| Tourism complaints | 0559-2267721 |
| Tourism information | 0559-5522297 |
| Ticket office | Main entrance, south of the village; last entry about 17:00 |
| Cash & cards | WeChat Pay and Alipay work in the village; carry some cash for stalls and small guesthouses |
| Tipping | Not expected and often politely refused — do not add a tip to the bill |
| Visa | Many nationalities now enter China visa-free for short stays — confirm your passport's status before booking |
Tips
The only time Moon Pond and South Lake are both still and uncrowded is before about 8am, before the wind and the coaches arrive. Slightly misty mornings give the classic ink-painting shot; by mid-morning the reflections are broken and the bridges are full.
People near the entrance may offer to sneak you in without paying. Do not — you lose time, risk a fine, and gain nothing. The ¥104 ticket is valid three days and covers the sights and the guide; buy it and keep it on you.
Sleeping inside the walls means no re-buying the ticket and no squeezing your visit into the crowded middle of the day. Ask your guesthouse to meet you at the gate — many will, and some can arrange a small discount.
The Tunxi–Hongcun tourist bus stops at Xidi only briefly, eight times a day. Arrive at the gate ten minutes early, or you will be waiting for the next one — a car or a tour is more flexible if time is tight.
Spring brings rapeseed around the village; autumn turns the hills and lights up Tachuan, 2 km away. Avoid the National Day and Spring Festival holidays, when the village fills, prices roughly double, and the dawn spot is standing-room only.
The best meal in Hongcun is dinner at your guesthouse, cooked from whatever the hills are giving that month. Ask the owner what is fresh — wild greens in spring, winter bamboo and cured pork later — rather than ordering from a printed menu.
Background
Hongcun's defining idea is its water. In the Southern Song, around the twelfth century, the village's founders — drawing on feng shui — designed the whole settlement as a single organism in the shape of an ox. Leigang Hill behind the village became the head; two ancient trees the horns; a winding channel of water the intestines; Moon Pond the stomach; and South Lake, added four hundred years later, the belly.
The channel, or shuizhen, is the masterpiece. It threads the village from end to end, running past every house, and served six purposes at once: fire control, climate control, drinking water, washing, irrigation and, in time, power. It still runs today, past the wash-stones and the kitchens, which is why Hongcun feels like a place that is lived in rather than preserved.
Hongcun was founded in the Northern Song, roughly nine hundred years ago, by a Wang family claiming descent from Wang Hua, a Tang-dynasty duke of Yue. The village sits in Yixian county, tucked below Leigang Hill and facing South Lake — 'leaning on Leigang, facing South Lake' — a site chosen to block the north wind and avoid flash flooding while still commanding the hills.
By the Qing dynasty, the descendants of the Hui merchants who traded across China had poured their fortunes into the village, and it became a place of fine houses, a working water system and a strong tradition of learning. Its relative isolation in the hills protected it through the twentieth century: it was never modernised out of shape.
In 2000, Hongcun and neighbouring Xidi were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as the outstanding surviving examples of ancient Hui villages. Since then it has become one of China's most photographed places, and a favourite of film-makers — Ang Lee shot parts of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon among the bamboo and the lanes here in 1999.
Travel with them
Not guides — films, books and music made here or about here, that show the village the way the people in it see it.
Dir. Ang Lee, 2000
The film that put Hongcun and the Wooden Keng bamboo forest on the world's screens. Ang Lee's wuxia epic, with Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh, used the village lanes and the bamboo sea around it as locations — and it remains the most globally famous piece of cinema shot in the Hui country.
Dir. Chen Kaige, 1996
Chen Kaige's moody romance, starring Leslie Cheung and Gong Li, set in 1920s China and filmed in part among the Hui houses — all falling light, carved interiors and languid decay. It captures the melancholy side of these old merchant mansions better than any travel programme.
Wang Senqiang and Lu Tingfang
A book about Hongcun's old houses by a writer born in the village's own Shuren Hall. Wang spent decades thinking and writing about heritage preservation, and this is both a guide to the buildings and an insider's account of living inside a World Heritage Site.
Li Zhihui
An instrumental piece that plays like the village looks — a distant, old melody, the sense of a rainy lane and a long history. Put it on while you look at South Lake and the mood of the place arrives on its own.
The questions visitors ask us most about Hongcun, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Entry is ¥104 per person and is valid for three days, covering the main sights and the village guide service. Students pay half price, but postgraduate cards are not accepted. Keep the ticket with you — staff check it inside the village — and stay overnight inside the walls if you want to avoid re-buying it.
By road. From Tunxi, which is what locals mean by 'Huangshan city', the tourist bus station runs direct services to Hongcun in about 1.5 hours; the first bus is around 8am and the last around 4pm, with no service at midday. From Huangshan North railway station it is roughly an hour by car or shuttle. The nearest airport is Huangshan Tunxi (TXN), about 1 hour 20 minutes away. From Yixian town, a local bus runs every 20 minutes and costs ¥2.
Inside, if you can. Staying within the walls means you do not re-buy the ticket, you get the lanes before 8am and after the coaches leave, and you can eat dinner in a family courtyard. The village is small, so rooms are simple and prices rise sharply at holidays — book ahead. Outside the village is cheaper and noisier, with none of the mood you came for.
First light, and again at dusk. The water at Moon Pond and South Lake is stillest before the wind picks up, and before 8am the day-trippers have not arrived — that is the classic mirror shot. Slightly misty mornings are best of all. In the evening, the bridges and the pond glow under lantern light, but you will share the spot, so get there early.
Yes — that is the whole point. Day-trippers see it between about 10am and 4pm, exactly when it is busiest. One night inside the village gets you the mist over Moon Pond at dawn and the quiet lanes at dusk, when the tour groups have gone. Many guesthouses serve breakfast and will cook dinner for you.
Spring (March to May), when the rapeseed is out and the village sits in yellow fields, and autumn (October to November), when the surrounding hills turn and nearby Tachuan is at its best. Winter is quiet and beautiful under snow but cold; summer is hot and wet. Avoid the National Day and Spring Festival holidays, when prices double and the lanes are packed.
One, and it is worth knowing: people near the entrance may offer to sneak you in without a ticket. Do not take it — it wastes time, risks a fine and supports nothing. Buy the official ¥104 ticket, and if you have booked a guesthouse, ask the owner to meet you at the gate; many will, and some can arrange a small discount.
Plan this trip
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Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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