Modern Metropolis
现代都市
Skylines, bullet trains, night markets and the loudest urbanism on earth.
Photo: MasaneMiyaPA · CC BY-SA 4.0
Half of any honest China trip is the present tense: Shanghai's Pudong wall of towers seen from a 1920s waterfront, Shenzhen turning from fishing villages into 17 million people in forty years, Chongqing's monorail driving straight through an apartment block, and Chengdu's teahouses full of people who have not been in a hurry since the Tang dynasty. These are the cities that make visitors recalibrate.
08Covered in depth
8 destinations in this theme
UNESCO
Gulangyu, Xiamen 鼓浪屿
A car-free island of decaying colonial villas, banyan trees and — genuinely — more pianos per head than anywhere on earth.
Shanghai 上海
A 1920s waterfront staring across a river at the tallest skyline in Asia, with the best restaurant scene in China in between.
Guangzhou 广州
Canton: two thousand years of foreign trade, the birthplace of dim sum, and the best eating city in China.
Hong Kong 香港
The densest skyline on earth pressed against jungle mountains, with 40% of the territory protected as country park.
Chengdu & the Panda Base 成都
Pandas at breakfast, mahjong in a teahouse by ten, and the most numbing food in China by dinner.
Chongqing 重庆
A city built vertically on cliffs between two rivers, where the metro drives through an apartment block and the ground floor might be the twenty-second.
The Yangtze Three Gorges 长江三峡
Two hundred kilometres of gorge on the world's third-longest river, ending at the largest hydroelectric dam ever built.
Harbin Ice Festival 哈尔滨冰雪大世界
A city of illuminated ice, cut from a frozen river in blocks and rebuilt every winter at −25°C.
+Also worth knowing
14 more from the full index
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Tiananmen Square天安门广场 Beijing
440,000 m² of paving between the Forbidden City's gate and Mao's mausoleum. Passport and advance booking required to enter.
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798 Art District798艺术区 Beijing
A Bauhaus-designed East German electronics factory turned into China's best-known contemporary gallery quarter.
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Yan'an延安 Shaanxi
The cave headquarters of the Communist Party from 1936 to 1948, and the endpoint of the Long March. Deep loess country.
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Qingdao青岛 Shandong
A German concession town of red roofs and a Bavarian brewery founded in 1903, with beaches and the country's best-known beer.
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Tianjin Five Great Avenues天津五大道 Tianjin
Two square kilometres of British, French, German and Italian concession villas, 30 minutes from Beijing by bullet train.
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Sheshan & Songjiang佘山 Shanghai
A basilica on Shanghai's only hill, and beside it the Shimao Wonderland hotel built down the face of a flooded quarry.
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Jingdezhen景德镇 Jiangxi
The porcelain capital for a thousand years, with imperial kiln excavations and a thriving young ceramics scene.
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Shenzhen深圳 Guangdong
Fishing villages in 1980, 17.5 million people now. Huaqiangbei electronics market, Dafen oil-painting village, and OCT-LOFT.
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Sanya & Hainan三亚 Hainan
China's tropical resort coast at 18°N — palm beaches, duty-free malls, and rainforest and Li minority villages inland.
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Haikou & Volcano Cluster海口火山群 UNESCO Hainan
Arcaded colonial shophouse streets and, half an hour inland, a geopark of 40 dormant volcanic craters.
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Wuhan武汉 Hubei
Three cities on the Yangtze and Han: the Yellow Crane Tower, a Republican-era waterfront, and hot-dry noodles for breakfast.
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Dandong & the Yalu丹东 Liaoning
A border city facing North Korea across the river, with a bombed-out bridge that stops halfway and boat trips along the frontier.
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Lantau & the Outlying Islands大屿山 Hong Kong SAR
The Big Buddha, Tai O's stilt village, and car-free Cheung Chau and Lamma, all under an hour from Central.
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Beihai Silver Beach北海银滩 Guangxi
24 km of fine white sand on the Gulf of Tonkin, with the arcaded Beihai Old Street behind it.