Cities
31 cities we know well enough to write about. Start with one, stay longer than you planned.
Imperial capital, hutong breakfasts, and the Wall a day trip away.
A walled Ming town, best after the day-trippers leave.
Colossal Buddhas in the cliffs, a temple hanging off another one, two hours from Beijing.
The Longmen Buddhas, China's first Buddhist temple, and peonies every April.
The Song capital, buried under the Yellow River's silt and still eating its night market.
The junction where China's railways cross, standing on a Shang capital, with Shaolin an hour away.
Riverfront art deco, plane-tree streets, and the best transit in the country.
West Lake at dawn, tea terraces, and under an hour by train from Shanghai.
Classical gardens and canals, half an hour from Shanghai.
Ming walls, plane-tree avenues, and a mountain of tombs at the edge of town.
An island city with a car-free island beside it. Sea air, old villas, slow afternoons.
Red roofs, a German old town, and beer poured into plastic bags.
Marco Polo's port, with mosques, temples and red-brick lanes still in use.
Stone bridges, black-awning boats and yellow wine. The water town that is still a town.
Teahouses, hot pot, pandas, and a city that refuses to rush.
A vertical city on two rivers. Spicy, foggy, loud in a good way.
Lake, mountains, and the slowest pace on this list.
The Spring City: mild all year, gulls on the lake, and the door to Yunnan.
Naxi cobbled towns under a snow mountain. Stay in Shuhe or Baisha, not Dayan.
Cool summers, sour soup, and the road into Guizhou's villages.
Karst peaks and the Li River. Most people base themselves in Yangshuo.
Morning tea, arcaded streets, and the most relaxed big city in the south.
Three towns on the Yangtze, breakfast as a way of life, and a lake bigger than the city centre.
Han tombs, a mountain academy, and the loudest, best-fed night in the south.
Bicycles, bamboo rafts and limestone peaks. Stay in a village, not the town.
Forty-five years old, with Ming walls, mangroves and fifteen beaches inside the city limits.
The Terracotta Army, a city wall you can cycle, and street food in the Muslim Quarter.
Beef noodles at dawn on the Yellow River, and the start of the Silk Road.
A desert oasis with a thousand years of painted caves. Book the caves first, then everything else.
A Tibetan monastery, a Hui old town, and the big blue lake on the plateau.
