The imperial palace, in the middle of town
China's second complete imperial palace, and the one the Qing built before they took Beijing. The Dazheng Hall with its eight banner pavilions is the piece you will not see anywhere else.
City guide · Liaoning
Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Thirty-odd hours in Shenyang and I got sun and rain, delight and disappointment — and the sense that a city does not have to be pretty to stay with you.
Traveller note — 'Two Days in the Northeast'
I came expecting an industrial town. I found a walled palace in the middle of it.
Traveller note — 'Meeting Shenyang'
Shenyang does not announce itself. You arrive through the usual ring of office towers and flyovers, and then, three streets off the pedestrian mall of Zhongjie, there is a red-and-gold imperial gate with a moat of tourists and a walled courtyard behind it. The Qing dynasty began here, and the palace where it began is still standing in the middle of the modern city.
That layering is what makes Shenyang worth more than a stopover. Walk from the palace five minutes east and you are at the Zhang family mansion, where the warlords who ruled Manchuria in the 1920s lived in a compound of Chinese halls and European villas. Another metro ride north and the tomb of an emperor sits in a public park full of people doing tai chi at seven in the morning.
The food is the other reason to come. Shenyang eats the way the northeast eats: huge plates of pork and pickled cabbage, dumplings by the dozen, cured meat folded into flaky pancakes, and cold noodles with vinegar and chilli in the Korean quarter of Xita. Nothing is precious, everything is big, and the bill is smaller than almost any city of this size in China.
Come in autumn for the most comfortable weather, or in January if you want to see the palace roofs under snow and do not mind the cold. Spring is windy and dusty; midsummer is humid. Whatever the season, pack an appetite.
Shenyang
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
China's second complete imperial palace, and the one the Qing built before they took Beijing. The Dazheng Hall with its eight banner pavilions is the piece you will not see anywhere else.
The Zhang family compound is half Chinese courtyard, half European villa — a house built by men who ruled Manchuria as their own fiefdom in the 1920s.
Beiling holds Hong Taiji, Dongling holds Nurhaci. Both sit in parks, and both are best at dawn, when locals are exercising around a 400-year-old burial mound.
Free, and sobering: the Mukden Incident of 1931 began here, and the museum is built on the site. Its clock is stopped at the moment of the attack.
Free, and one of the best in the northeast for jade, bronze and Liao-dynasty ceramics. Closed Mondays — plan around it, not on it.
Dumplings one night, smoked pork and pickled cabbage the next. This is the food the rest of China means when it says northeastern cooking, and it is at its cheapest here.
Suggested itineraries
Day one is entirely on foot. The rest needs the metro and, for the tombs, ideally a car.
With a single day, follow the city's spine from north to south — an emperor's tomb, then the palace, then the warlord's house.
Start early at Beiling, the tomb park of Hong Taiji. Before 6am the gate is free and the paths are full of people doing tai chi and walking backwards for their health — it is the most local hour you will spend in Shenyang.
Pay the small extra ticket to go inside the Zhao Mausoleum itself, then walk the 1.5 km from the park gate to the tomb mound, or take the little electric cart.
Stops: Beiling ParkZhao MausoleumMorning exercise crowd
Take the metro to Zhongjie and come out at the palace. Budget two hours inside: the central axis of Chongzheng Hall and the Phoenix Tower, the eastern Dazheng Hall with the banner pavilions, and the western apartments where the emperors' consorts lived.
Eat lunch on Zhongjie afterwards — Laobian Dumpling House is right there.
Stops: Mukden PalaceDazheng HallZhongjieLaobian Dumpling House
Walk east from the palace to the Zhang compound and spend the rest of the day there. The ticket covers the courtyards, the two villas (Da Qing Lou and Xiao Qing Lou), the Zhao Yidi residence and the small finance museum on site.
If time is left, wander Huaiyuanmen Antique Street nearby, then find dinner in the old town.
Stops: Zhang mansionDa Qing LouZhao Yidi residenceFinance Museum
Add the second tomb, the two great museums and a proper dose of the city's food.
Run the one-day plan above: Beiling in the morning, the palace and the Zhang mansion in the afternoon, dinner of dumplings on Zhongjie.
Stops: BeilingMukden PalaceZhang mansionZhongjie
Go east in the morning to Dongling Park and climb the 108 steps to the Fu Mausoleum, Nurhaci's tomb above the Hun River.
After lunch, ride the metro to the Liaoning Provincial Museum (closed Mondays) and give it two hours for the jade, bronze and imperial paintings.
Stops: Dongling ParkFu MausoleumLiaoning Provincial Museum
Start at the 9.18 Historical Museum — free, and the darkest chapter of the city's story. In the afternoon, walk Zhongjie and dip into the nearby Xiao'nan Catholic Church for a quiet half hour.
In the evening, eat cured-meat pancakes, then go to Xita for cold noodles and a last wander.
Stops: 9.18 MuseumXiao'nan ChurchZhongjieXita
Sights
Ticket prices in China change without much notice. Treat these as a guide and confirm on arrival.
UNESCO · Imperial palace
The Qing court before the move to Beijing, and China's only other complete imperial palace. It runs on a central axis from the Da Qing Gate to the Chongzheng Hall — where Hong Taiji held council — and the Phoenix Tower and Qingning Palace behind it. The eastern section is the odd, wonderful part: the octagonal Dazheng Hall flanked by the pavilions of the eight Manchu banners, a layout built for a tribal army, not an emperor.
Tip Come at opening. By 11am in summer the central axis is a single moving wall of tour groups, and the eastern hall — the best part — empties out last.
History · Warlord era
The compound where Zhang Zuolin and his son Zhang Xueliang ran Manchuria as a private empire. Chinese courtyards give way to the two European villas — Da Qing Lou and Xiao Qing Lou — and the east wing holds the Zhao Yidi residence, the house of the general's famously devoted companion. The furniture and photographs are original to the period, and the finance museum on the same ticket fills in how the warlords paid for it all.
Tip The combo ticket is the point — most people rush the courtyards and miss the finance museum, which is the part that explains the whole era.
Imperial tomb · Park
The tomb of Hong Taiji, about 10 li north of the old city, which is what Beiling — 'north tomb' — means. A long spirit way leads through old pines to the burial mound, and the park around it is where the city exercises: groups dancing, tai chi, calligraphy written on the paving with water. The tomb itself is the quieter, grander thing you paid for.
Tip Come before 6am and the park gate is free. The walk from the gate to the tomb is about 1.5 km — an electric cart runs it if you would rather save your legs.
Imperial tomb · Park
Nurhaci's tomb, in the eastern suburbs, built with its back to Tianzhu Hill and its face to the Hun River. The signature is the 108-step stair — symbolising the 36 heavenly and 72 earthly spirits — that climbs to the main hall. It is smaller and less visited than Beiling, which is exactly why some people prefer it.
Tip People come here to picnic as much as to sightsee. Bring something to eat and sit on the steps for a while.
Museum · Free
The best single stop for Liaoning's archaeology and imperial art: Jin, Tang, Song and Yuan painting, Song-dynasty silk tapestry, Hongshan-culture jade, Shang and Zhou bronzes and Liao ceramics. The building is large, well laid out and free, which makes it the best rainy-day or Monday-proofed half-day in the city.
Tip It closes on Mondays without exception. If your trip is short, check the day before you plan your other sights.
Museum · Free
Built to mark 18 September 1931, when the Japanese army sabotaged a railway near the city and used it as the pretext to invade Manchuria. The building opens onto a leaning stone tablet carved with a vow never to forget the national humiliation, above a clock face stopped at the hour of the attack. The upper floors hold the historical record. It is not a light visit, but it is the visit that makes the rest of the city make sense.
Tip Pair it with the Zhang mansion rather than doing it alone — the warlord era and the invasion are the same story told from two sides.
Nature · Day trip
The city's nearest proper mountain, an hour northeast, known for green spring hills, maple autumn and a ski field in winter. There are historical sites scattered through it — a Goguryeo mountain fortress, old pavilions and temples — plus the film-studio town next door. It is a full-day trip and best with a car.
Tip Public buses to Qipanshan are infrequent and unreliable in the low season. If you are not driving, book a driver for the day.
Eating
Dongbei food runs salty, oily and generous. Order less than you think you need — you can always add.
The city's signature dish, and a century old. The filling is fried first, then braised in chicken or bone stock until it plumps — the result is a juicy dumpling with a deep, savoury centre.
Fragrant cured pork folded into a crisp, flaky pancake. Invented in 1842, and still the most satisfying cheap lunch in the city.
A Manchu dish shared with Jilin: pork belly and blood sausage, red and white, rich but not greasy. Najia is the name to look for.
The Korean quarter around Xita does cold buckwheat noodles in chilled broth — sharp, vinegary and the perfect thing on a hot day.
Sweet-and-sour pork, northeast style: slices of pork in a crackling batter with a glossy vinegar sauce. The dish every northeasterner orders to test a kitchen.
A steamed dumpling open at the top, with a thin skin and a pork-and-soup filling. Another old Shenyang name, best eaten hot and fast.
Where to eat
Phone numbers are local landlines; add +86 and drop the leading 0 if calling from abroad.
Dumplings · Landmark
The most famous dumpling house in the northeast, on Zhongjie. The steamed and the ice-flower (pan-fried) dumplings are the ones to order, and the dumpling banquet is a spectacle. It is a big canteen rather than a restaurant — expect a queue at peak times and service that is functional at best.
Northern · Cheap
A hundred-year-old name that is all about one dish. The pancake is crisp, the smoked pork is warm and fragrant, and the two together are worth the trip on their own. Portions are hefty and the price is low, so it fills up with locals at lunch.
Dumplings · Family
Perpetually busy and reliably good, this is where locals go for a family meal. The dumplings are thin-skinned and generous, and the seasonal cold dishes — the five-colour la pi, the shredded potato — are as good as the dumplings.
Dongbei · Atmosphere
A modern reconstruction of an old northeast farmstead, down to the donkey-turned millstone and the 1960s furniture. The food is proper dongbei home cooking — water tofu, guo bao rou, pork ribs with pickled cabbage — and it is loud, warm and permanently full.
Korean barbecue
The northeast has a deep Korean streak, and this long-running chain is where Shenyang goes for it. Big plates of thick-cut pork belly and beef, a table full of side dishes, and a grill you work yourself. Good value and consistently packed.
Sleeping
Stay near Zhongjie or the imperial palace for the walkable centre. Prices rise sharply during the National Day and Spring Festival holidays.
Hostel · from ¥128
The best-located budget bed in the city, in a 1925 officers' club beside the palace — the building still has its original European detailing and photographs of Zhang Xueliang's career. Book early; it is small and popular.
Hostel · from ¥45/bed
The original Shenyang hostel, run by travellers for travellers, and cheap even by local standards. Dorms and private rooms, a sociable common area and staff who will draw you a route on the map.
Hotel · from ¥185
A reliable chain hotel with the single best location for sightseeing: five minutes on foot to the palace, the Zhang mansion, Zhongjie and a metro stop. Rooms are dated and the in-room Wi-Fi is weak, but the position is hard to beat at this price.
Hotel · from ¥108
Part hotel, part bathing house — the northeast's famous sauna culture under one roof, with buffet, hot pools, entertainment and rooms. Walking distance to Taiyuan Street and 15 minutes to the railway station. A genuinely local way to spend an evening.
Five-star · from ¥755
The city's luxury option, a tall tower on the Hun River near the International Business District and the Wulihe stadium, about 15 minutes from the centre. Large rooms, full facilities, and the highest standard in town if you want it.
Getting around
The metro covers the centre and both railway stations. Buses are cheap but stop early, so plan the evening around a taxi.
Shenyang Taoxian International Airport (SHE) is the largest in the northeast, 22 km southeast of the centre, with dense domestic service and international routes to Japan, Korea and beyond.
Two main stations. Shenyang North is the biggest rail hub in the northeast and sits on the Beijing–Harbin high-speed line; Shenyang Station, opened in 1899 as Fengtian, is the old one and serves the Shenyang–Dalian and eastern lines.
Both stations have taxi touts outside the exits. Walk to the official taxi rank or take the metro — never accept a ride from someone who approaches you.
Two lines, crossing at Youth Street, and between them they cover the palace, Beiling, Zhongjie, Taiyuan Street and both railway stations. Cheap, English-signed and the easiest way to move around the centre.
Plenty of taxis and honest meters, but the city gets hard to hail at rush hour and drivers sometimes pick up a second fare. At the airport and stations, use the official rank only.
More than 140 routes at ¥1 a ride, covering the whole city. The catch is the timetable: most stop by 7pm and only a handful run past 10pm, so a bus-based evening is usually a mistake.
Shopping
Shenyang's shopping is split between a smart middle and a very cheap market end. Both are worth an hour.
The historic pedestrian mall and the address for a normal city shop — malls, department stores and old buildings shoulder to shoulder. Metro line 1, Zhongjie station. It is also where the palace and the dumpling houses are.
The busiest commercial street in town, with big department stores above and a cheap, trendy underground market below. Good for clothes, shoes and people-watching. Metro line 1, Taiyuan Street station.
The northeast's clothing and light-goods wholesale market — 20,000-plus lines, dirt cheap if you are buying more than one. Opens at five or six in the morning and winds down by mid-afternoon. Watch your bag; it is genuinely crowded.
The edible souvenirs are the point: ginseng and deer antler, black fungus, Laolongkou rice wine, Bulaolin sweets, plum-flavoured soda and Snowflake beer. For crafts, look for Shenyang feather pictures and coloured-stone inlay work.
Practical
Staffed English help is not guaranteed. Save these before you need them.
| Emergency (police / ambulance / fire) | 110 · 120 · 119 |
|---|---|
| Tourist complaints (province) | 024-86230222 |
| No.1 Hospital, China Medical University | 155 Nanjing North Street, Heping District · 024-83282522 |
| Shenyang No.4 People's Hospital | 20 Huanghe South Street, Huanggu District · 024-86862514 |
| Cash & cards | Cards, WeChat Pay and Alipay accepted almost everywhere; carry a little cash for markets |
| Tipping | Not expected and sometimes 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 |
| Internet | Free Wi-Fi in hotels, cafés and malls; expect standard mainland restrictions on some foreign apps |
Tips
January hits −20°C and below. Thermals, fleece and a windproof shell beat a single heavy coat, and everything indoors is heated to T-shirt level. Insulated boots and a hat that covers your ears matter most.
The Liaoning Provincial Museum closes on Mondays. Put the palace, the tombs and the 9.18 Museum on that day and keep the museum for another.
The palace, the tombs and the museums are all calmer before 10am. Summer afternoons at the palace are a scrum; winter afternoons are short.
Both railway stations have unofficial cars waiting. Walk the extra 100 m to the official taxi rank or take the metro — it is faster and cheaper.
Dongbei portions are enormous and the seasoning is salty. Two dishes between two people is usually plenty at first; you can always order one more plate.
Most city buses stop by 7pm. After that, use the metro (until about 22:30) or a taxi rather than waiting at a stop for a bus that is not coming.
Background
Shenyang sits in the middle of Liaoning, on the plain either side of the Hun River, in the southern part of northeast China. It is the provincial capital, the largest city in the northeast and the core of a six-city economic zone that also includes Fushun, Benxi, Liaoyang, Anshan and Tieling. The municipality covers about 13,000 km², with roughly 6.3 million people in the urban districts.
The climate is temperate with strong monsoon influence: −29°C to 36°C across the year, an average of about 8°C, and 500 mm of rain, most of it in summer. That gives four sharp seasons — flowering springs, humid summers, clear autumns and genuinely cold, snowy winters — and an autumn that many locals quietly think is the best in China.
People have lived on the Hun River for at least 7,200 years, and the city itself dates from about 229 BC, when a garrison town called Houcheng was established. Through the Qin, Han, Ming and Qing it was a frontier settlement known by a string of names; it only became a capital in 1625, when Nurhaci moved the Later Jin court here and renamed it Shengjing.
Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji proclaimed the Qing dynasty from the city in 1636, and his tomb and his father's both stand on its outskirts today. When the Qing took Beijing in 1644 they demoted Shengjing to a secondary capital, a role it kept for two and a half centuries, and the palace and tombs you visit are the legacy of that role.
Modern Shenyang was shaped by two other things. The warlord Zhang Zuolin ran the northeast from here in the 1920s, and on 18 September 1931 the Mukden Incident gave Japan its pretext to invade Manchuria. After 1949 the city became the industrial heart of the new People's Republic — steel, machine tools, aircraft and chemicals — and the wide streets, functional architecture and sheer scale of central Shenyang are the legacy of that second identity.
Travel with them
Not guides — films, books and music made here, that show the city the way the people in it see it.
Dir. Zhang Meng, 2008
A retired railway worker, played by Fan Wei in one of his finest roles, drifts through a northeastern city at the turn of the century. It is a comedy for about twenty minutes and then it is not — a quiet, sad film about the people industrial Shenyang left behind, and the best screen portrait of the city there is.
Liaoning Provincial Archives
A history told through individual, half-forgotten stories rather than dates. Fengtian, the old name of the city, existed as a regional designation for 273 years, and this collects the politics, trades, customs and characters of that long century into a single volume.
Gu Zhenni
Drawn from a long-running newspaper column on the city's old street names, this traces seventy-five places back through the centuries. It is the best way to make sense of the names on the map — why a street is called what it is, and who used to live on it.
Na Ying
Na Ying was born and raised in Shenyang, and her mixture of bluntness and vulnerability is very northeastern. This album, which made her a national star, softens the edges without losing the directness — the sound of a Shenyang voice figuring out how to be tender.
Ai Jing
Ai Jing grew up on Yanfen Street in Shenyang and became one of the country's most distinctive folk songwriters. Self-written, self-played and self-sung, it is a diary of leaving home and coming back, and a good thing to listen to on the train out of the city.
The questions visitors ask us most about Shenyang, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Two days for the essentials and three to do it properly. Day one is the imperial palace and the Zhang mansion, which are neighbours off Zhongjie; day two is one imperial tomb plus one museum; a third day adds the second tomb, the Liaoning Provincial Museum and a full evening of local food. Four days lets you add a Qipanshan or hot-spring day out.
They are different trips. Harbin is a winter spectacle built on ice and Russian architecture; Shenyang is an imperial capital with a real palace, the warlord-era mansions and China's cheapest big-city food. If you are already in the northeast, do both — they are two hours apart by high-speed rail, and Shenyang is the one with the dynasty.
September and October are the sweet spot: clear, cool and dry. January is the month for snow on the palace roofs, but expect −20°C and below. Late spring is windy and dusty, and July and August are hot and humid. Winter is comfortable indoors because everything is heated, so the cold is a dressing problem rather than a real obstacle.
Start with the dumplings at Laobian, then smoked-pork pancakes (xun rou da bing), white pork with blood sausage, and a plate of guo bao rou — sweet-and-sour pork, the northeast's signature dish. Finish with cold noodles in Xita. Portions are large, the seasoning runs salty and oily, and a big dinner rarely costs more than US$12 a head.
For most sights you can buy on the door, but the Mukden Palace and the Zhang mansion get busy in summer and at holidays, so an online slot booked the day before saves queuing. Both museums are free and the Liaoning Provincial Museum closes on Mondays — build your itinerary around that. Bring your passport, which is increasingly needed for free-ticket registration.
Mostly. The metro is signed in English, the palace and the Zhang mansion are walkable from each other, and restaurant picture menus and translation apps cover the rest. English is thin at ticket offices and taxis, and drivers rarely speak it. Distances to the imperial tombs and Qipanshan are awkward by bus, so a driver for those days makes a real difference.
Qipanshan, northeast of the city, is the nearest mountain and turns into a ski field in winter. There are hot-spring resorts and the lavender fields at Ziyan in season. Farther out, Fushun has a theme park and a former coal-mine pit, and the whole Liaodong loop links Shenyang to Dalian and the coast by high-speed rail in about two hours.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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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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