Karst & Rivers

North China's largest freshwater wetland, a maze of reed channels punted by boat, now beside the Xiong'an new city.

The Yellow River funnelled from 300 metres wide to 50 in a churning ochre cataract. Best in September flood.

A Song pavilion on a sea cliff, traditionally the place from which the Eight Immortals crossed the sea. Mirages are genuinely recorded here.

A red sandstone geopark of slot canyons and a 314-metre waterfall, spectacular and extremely popular.

The easiest canal town — 40 minutes from central Shanghai on Metro Line 17, with a 72-metre Ming stone bridge.

A Grand Canal salt-merchant city with a narrow willow-lined lake, a five-pavilion bridge, and the best breakfast dim sum in the north.

The two original canal towns near Suzhou — stone bridges, whitewashed gables and Ming merchant houses on the water.

Source of the eroded limestone in every classical garden, plus an 88-metre bronze Buddha at Lingshan.

The quietest and grandest canal town: silk-merchant mansions with imported Belgian glass and private libraries.

A volcanic geopark of spires, sea caves and a 190-metre waterfall, with a nightly acrobatic show on a cliff face.

1,078 forested islands in a 1959 reservoir, with two intact Ming towns preserved 30 metres underwater.

Huizhou-style villages among rapeseed fields that turn brilliant yellow in late March — the most photographed spring in China.

The mountain that gave its name to the Danxia landform — red sandstone cliffs and towers above a green river.

Asia's largest transnational waterfall, straddling the Vietnamese border, with bamboo rafts poling up to the boundary marker.

China's youngest volcanic island, with black lava cliffs, coral beaches and a 19th-century French Gothic church.

A 900-year-old town of stone lanes and banyan roots among karst peaks, still barely touched by tourism.

A three-hour valley of larch, lakes and snow peaks that turns spectacular in late October, and far quieter than Jiuzhaigou.

Three natural limestone bridges and the Furong Cave, used as a location in Transformers and Curse of the Golden Flower.

A limestone pinnacle field 80 km from the 'spring city', plus Dianchi Lake and its wintering black-headed gulls.

Eroded earth pillars in a dry valley, at their strangest in low evening light. Almost no visitors.

Turquoise pools, tiered waterfalls and a 1836 stone bridge in a karst forest — the prettiest short walk in Guizhou.

Chambers up to 150 metres high with stalagmites the size of buildings. Arguably the finest show cave in Asia.

Tibet's low, green corner at 3,000 m — peach blossom in late March and the deepest canyon on earth.

A sacred salt lake at 4,718 m under the Nyenchen Tanglha range. Day-trippable from Lhasa, but the altitude is real.

Siberian larch and birch around a milky-blue lake in the Altai, with Tuvan villages. Golden and spectacular in late September.

An alpine lake at 2,070 m and the Ili valley's lavender fields and Kazakh grasslands, at their best in June.

A glacial lake below the 5,445 m Bogda Peak, an hour from the regional capital, with Kazakh yurt stays.

Old-growth forest reserve with golden snub-nosed monkeys, alpine meadows, and China's most persistent wild-man legend.

A Tujia town built directly over a waterfall — stilt houses on the lip of the drop. Two hours from Zhangjiajie.

Hexagonal volcanic rock columns along the Sai Kung coast, reached by boat from one of Asia's densest cities.

Stone fishing villages built from granite blocks, blue-tear bioluminescence in spring, and China's closest point to Taiwan.

Red cliffs and the Guoliang tunnel road, hand-carved through a mountain by thirteen villagers over five years.

An island chain in the Bohai Strait with seal colonies, sea cliffs and quiet fishing harbours.

Seaweed racks, bamboo poles and fishing boats on tidal flats — one of Asia's most sought-after landscape photography locations.

A 108 km karst canyon with a free-standing 150-metre stone pillar, in Tujia minority country west of Yichang.

Red rock, bamboo sea and a curtain waterfall, in the corner of Guizhou where Maotai liquor is distilled.

Karst peaks rising from lotus-covered lakes, punted by boat in July and August. Yi minority villages between them.