Country guide
China covers 9.6 million km², third largest of any country, and holds more than 1.4 billion people — about 17 per cent of everyone alive. It is divided into 33...
Photograph · Severin.stalder · CC BY-SA 3.0
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
China covers 9.6 million km², third largest of any country, and holds more than 1.4 billion people — about 17 per cent of everyone alive. It is divided into 33 province-level divisions, two of them special administrative regions.
Beijing is the capital; Shanghai is the most populous city by urban area. Between them the land runs from the Central Plain and the Yangtze and Yellow rivers out to desert, plateau, subtropical and temperate forest, and the Himalayas in the southwest. The first decision a visitor makes here is therefore not which sight to see but which climate to travel in.
Checked 2026-08-25
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · Mustang Joe · CC0
Photograph · Charlie fong · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · ScareCriterion12 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · Charlie fong · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
90 places match
Category
Typical visit duration
Interests
議事亭前地
Senado Square, known locally as 議事亭前地, is a public square in the historic centre of Macau. It forms part of the Historic Centre of Macau UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Xi'an City Wall is a major military defensive system in Chinese history. The existing structure dates primarily to the early Ming dynasty, built on foundations from earlier periods including Tang dynasty fortifications.
The Former French Concession is a large historic area of central Shanghai rather than a single preserved monument. France obtained the concession in 1849, and its boundaries expanded as Shanghai grew before the administration ended during the Second World War.
Muslim Quarter
Xi'an Muslim Quarter is a lived commercial and residential district in the city centre, known for Hui culture, mosques and food streets. It is not one market hall or a single ticketed attraction.
The Ming Tombs form a dispersed imperial necropolis in Changping District rather than a single museum. Thirteen Ming emperors were buried across a valley selected for its landscape and geomantic setting.
Xintiandi is a pedestrianized entertainment and shopping district in central Shanghai. The area comprises restored traditional shikumen lane houses, a distinctive architectural form combining Western and Chinese elements that was prevalent in the city from the 1860s to the 1930s.
民政總署大樓
The Leal Senado Building stands in Senado Square at the heart of Macau’s historic centre. Its name means Loyal Senate in Portuguese, recalling the building’s role in colonial municipal government.
Qianmen Street is the historic ceremonial southern approach to Beijing's old inner city and its leading traditional commercial thoroughfare.
Gao Family Courtyard is a preserved historical residence located within Xian's Muslim Quarter. The compound represents traditional Shaanxi architecture and offers visitors an interior space distinct from the surrounding food streets.
Tai O is a historic fishing village on the western coast of Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It is one of the territory's oldest settlements, renowned for its distinctive stilt houses built over tidal flats.
天壇大佛 Tian Tan Buddha Statue
The Tian Tan Buddha sits on the summit of Mount Muk Yue, 482 metres above sea level, at the edge of the Ngong Ping plateau on Lantau Island.
伊利莎白皇后號 RMS Queen Elizabeth
The RMS Queen Elizabeth was a British ocean liner launched in 1938, which served as a troopship during World War II and later as a luxury transatlantic passenger liner.
中環至半山自動扶手電梯系統 Central-Mid-Levels Escalator System
The Central to Mid-Levels Escalator and Walkway System is a piece of public transport infrastructure that happens to have become a sight.
山頂纜車 Peak Tram
The Peak Tram is a double reversible funicular railway that hauls two tramcars up the north face of Hong Kong Island between Garden Road in Central and Victoria Gap, the saddle in the hills where the Peak Tower stands.
星光大道 Avenue of Stars
The Avenue of Stars is a 440-metre waterfront promenade on the Tsim Sha Tsui shore of Victoria Harbour, built as a tribute to the Hong Kong film industry and laid out as a walk rather than as a building.
蘭桂坊 Lan Kwai Fong
Lan Kwai Fong is a compact nightlife and entertainment district in Central, Hong Kong. The area comprises a cluster of L-shaped streets and alleys that form one of the territory's most concentrated zones of bars, restaurants, and clubs.
故宫
The Forbidden City is the palace complex that housed 24 Ming and Qing emperors and now forms the Palace Museum. Completed in 1420, it covers more than one million square metres and contains around 9,000 architectural bays.
颐和园
The Summer Palace is Beijing's best-preserved imperial garden, organised around Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake.
怡和午砲 Noonday Gun
The Noonday Gun is a historic naval artillery piece located in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island. It is famously fired daily at noon, a tradition maintained by Jardine Matheson, the British trading company established in the territory.
天坛公园
The Temple of Heaven is a renowned imperial religious complex in Beijing, China. Its local name is 天坛.
1881 Heritage
1881 Heritage occupies the Former Marine Police Headquarters, a declared monument in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. The compound comprises the main building constructed in 1884, the stable block, and a signal tower added in 1907.
周口店北京人遗址
Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site is a paleoanthropological locality in southwest Beijing. It yielded fossils of Homo erectus pekinensis, commonly called Peking Man, in excavations during the early twentieth century.
中環街市 Central Market
Central Market is a historic market building located in the Central district of Hong Kong Island. The structure represents one of the city's significant surviving examples of market architecture from the early twentieth century.
PMQ 元創方
PMQ, formerly the Police Married Quarters, is a creative hub in Hong Kong's Sheung Wan district. The heritage site has been revitalized into a center for design, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
大雁塔
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda, known locally as 大雁塔, stands as a prominent Buddhist pagoda in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.
Twelve to eighteen days can link Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai by high-speed rail, with Shenzhen as a southern extension. Hong Kong and Macao need separate border planning and should not be treated as ordinary domestic stops on the same timetable.
Entry rules differ between mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao, even within one journey. Check the official immigration authority for every border segment and match the permission to the passport, purpose, and exact itinerary.
High-speed rail and domestic flights cover mainland distances, while metros handle most urban journeys. Hong Kong uses Octopus and separate border controls, and Macao has its own formalities, so prepare payment and identity requirements for each jurisdiction.
April to May and September to October are only broad mainland planning windows. Beijing, Shanghai, the south, Hong Kong, and Macao have different heat, rain, and holiday pressures; the least flexible regional leg should set the dates.
Mainland China uses renminbi (CNY), while Hong Kong and Macao use HKD and MOP. Payment systems and card acceptance differ across those jurisdictions, so prepare the appropriate local method before crossing each border.
On the mainland, save 110 for police and 120 for medical help; Hong Kong and Macao use separate emergency systems. Mainland electricity is recorded as 220 V with Type A, C, and I sockets, while tap-water guidance is not recorded.
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