City Guides

China's capital for most of the last eight centuries, seat of the Yuan, Ming, Qing and the People's Republic. Home of the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the closest stretches of the Great Wall.

Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) is based on the Beijing dialect. The city keeps Peking opera, hutong courtyard life and Spring Festival temple fairs alongside a fast modern rhythm; Beijing roast duck is its signature dish.

A port on the Bohai Gulf and Beijing's historic gateway to the sea. Nineteenth-century foreign concessions left European avenues along the Haihe river.

The Tianjin dialect is known for quick wit; the city is the home of xiangsheng (crosstalk comedy). Goubuli steamed buns, clay figurine folk art and New Year woodblock prints are local traditions.

The province that wraps around Beijing and Tianjin. It holds the Chengde imperial summer resort, the Shanhaiguan pass where the Great Wall meets the sea, and much of China's steel industry.

Hebei bangzi is a loud, percussive regional opera; the province has deep martial-arts lineages and elaborate Lantern Festival lantern fairs and ice sculptures.

A loess plateau east of the Yellow River and one of the oldest centres of Chinese civilisation. It keeps the walled Ming city of Pingyao, the Yungang Buddhist grottoes, and the legacy of the Jin merchants who ran China's first banks.

The Jin dialect group is distinct within Mandarin. Shanxi is famous for hand-sliced noodles and aged vinegar, for shadow-puppet theatre and for spectacular Lantern Festival displays.

A long band of grassland, desert and forest along China's northern border, with major coal and rare-earth reserves. The mausoleum of Genghis Khan stands in its Ordos plateau.

Mongolian is co-official with Mandarin and written in the vertical Mongol script. The summer Naadam festival features wrestling, horse racing and archery; throat singing, the morin khuur fiddle and milk tea are everyday culture.

The southernmost and most industrial of the north-eastern provinces. Shenyang holds the early-Qing Imperial Palace; Dalian is a mild coastal city built by Russia and Japan.

The broad Northeastern Mandarin accent is instantly recognisable nationwide. Errenzhuan song-and-dance comedy, thick stews, pickled cabbage and winter ice festivals define the region.

Centred on the Changbai Mountains and their crater lake on the North Korean border. Changchun grew up around the car and film industries; Yanbian is a Korean-Chinese autonomous prefecture.

Mandarin is spoken alongside Korean in Yanbian. The winter rime ice on the Songhua river draws photographers; Manchu and Korean dishes, cold noodles, kimchi and barbecue are staples.

China's far north-east, bordering Russia along the Amur river, with the Daqing oilfield and vast black-soil farmland. Harbin was built by the Trans-Manchurian Railway and still shows Russian architecture.

Harbin's International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival is the world's largest. Russian loanwords, sausage and rye bread, winter swimming and hot-pot warm the long winters.

A fishing town that became a treaty port in 1843 and is now China's financial capital. The Bund faces the Pudong skyline across the Huangpu river; shikumen lane houses survive between the towers.

Shanghainese is a Wu dialect. The city's haipai ("Shanghai style") culture mixes Chinese and Western influences; xiaolongbao soup dumplings and the Yu Garden Lantern Festival are local touchstones.

The prosperous province immediately upriver and inland from Shanghai. Nanjing served as a dynastic capital many times; Suzhou's classical gardens and canals are a UNESCO site on the Grand Canal.

Wu and Jianghuai Mandarin are both spoken. Kunqu, the refined opera that shaped all later Chinese theatre, was born here, as was the delicate Huaiyang cuisine.

A hilly coastal province of tea, silk and private enterprise. Hangzhou's West Lake has inspired poets for a thousand years; Mount Putuo is a major Buddhist pilgrimage island.

Wu dialects vary sharply from valley to valley. Yue opera, Longjing green tea, and watching the autumn tidal bore roar up the Qiantang river are Zhejiang traditions.

An inland province split by the Yangtze and Huai rivers. Huangshan (the Yellow Mountain) and the whitewashed Huizhou villages of Xidi and Hongcun are UNESCO sites.

The Huizhou merchants built China's ink-stones, rice paper and brush culture. Anhui opera travelled to Beijing in 1790 and became the ancestor of Peking opera.

A mountainous coast facing Taiwan, historically a launch point for emigration across South-East Asia. Quanzhou was a great medieval maritime-Silk-Road port; the Hakka tulou earthen roundhouses are a UNESCO site.

The Min dialects, Hokkien in the south, Fuzhou speech in the north, differ greatly from Mandarin. Oolong tea, glove-puppet theatre and the Mazu sea-goddess festival are central to local life.

A basin drained by the Gan river into Poyang, China's largest freshwater lake. Jingdezhen has produced imperial porcelain for a thousand years; Jinggangshan was the first Communist rural base.

Gan and Hakka are the main dialects. Nuo masked ritual dance, ancestral-hall clan traditions and Dragon Boat racing are strong here.

A peninsula between the Bohai and Yellow seas, and the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius. Mount Tai is the most revered of China's sacred peaks; Qingdao keeps a German quarter and a famous brewery.

Jilu Mandarin is the local speech. Lu cuisine is one of the four great regional traditions; Weifang holds an international kite festival every spring.

The core of the Central Plains where Chinese civilisation formed. It holds three ancient capitals (Luoyang, Kaifeng and Anyang, where the oracle bones were found), the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Grottoes.

Central Plains Mandarin is the local speech. Yu opera is the country's largest regional opera form; wheat noodles and stuffed flatbreads are the everyday diet.

Where the Han river joins the Yangtze at Wuhan, the transport heart of China. The 1911 revolution began here; upriver stands the Three Gorges Dam.

South-western Mandarin and the ancient Chu heritage shape local identity. Hot-dry noodles (reganmian) are Wuhan's breakfast; Dragon Boat racing is said to have started on these rivers.

A province of lakes and mountains south of the Yangtze. Dongting Lake, the quartz pillars of Zhangjiajie and Mao Zedong's home village of Shaoshan are all here, as is the thousand-year-old Yuelu Academy.

The Xiang dialect is spoken across the province. Flower-drum folk opera, fiercely chilli-hot cuisine and the festivals of the Miao and Tujia peoples give Hunan a bold character.

The Pearl River delta, China's manufacturing and export engine. Guangzhou (Canton) has been a foreign-trade port for two thousand years; Shenzhen went from village to megacity in forty.

Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka are all spoken. Cantonese opera, lion dance, spring flower markets and, above all, dim sum "yum cha" tea lunches are the culture of Lingnan.

A Zhuang autonomous region of dramatic karst scenery, the peaks of Guilin, the Li river, and the Longsheng rice terraces. The Zhuang are China's largest ethnic minority.

The Zhuang language is co-official; South-western Mandarin and Cantonese are also common. The Zhuang "March Third" song festival, along with Yao and Miao customs, fills the spring calendar.

China's tropical island province and a new free-trade port. Sanya on the southern tip is a beach-resort city; the interior is home to the Li and Miao peoples.

Hainanese (a Min dialect) is spoken alongside Mandarin. Li brocade weaving, coconut-shell carving and open-air "Junpo" folk-song gatherings are island traditions.

A mountain city where the Jialing meets the Yangtze, and China's wartime capital from 1937 to 1945. Roads, railways and buildings stack up the cliffs on many levels.

The Chongqing dialect of South-western Mandarin is fast and direct. The city is the home of numbing-spicy hotpot; Ciqikou old town and Spring Festival keep older customs alive.

The "land of abundance", the Chengdu plain has been irrigated by the Dujiangyan works for over two thousand years. It holds the giant pandas, Jiuzhaigou's lakes, and the Leshan Giant Buddha.

Sichuanese, a South-western Mandarin dialect, is warm and playful. Sichuan opera with its lightning "face-changing", unhurried teahouse life and mouth-numbing peppercorn cuisine are famous nationwide.

A rugged, cave-riddled plateau and one of China's most ethnically varied provinces. Huangguoshu is the country's largest waterfall; Moutai, the national spirit, is distilled here.

Mandarin shares the province with Miao, Dong and Buyi languages. Dong "grand choirs" are a UNESCO art; the Lusheng reed-pipe festivals and the Miao Sisters' Meal festival draw whole valleys together.

China's most biodiverse province, on the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. It keeps the old towns of Lijiang and Dali, the Shangri-La highlands and the Xishuangbanna rainforest, and it is the source of Pu'er tea.

Twenty-five ethnic minorities live here; Bai, Naxi (with its Dongba pictographs), Dai and Yi are among their languages. The Dai Water-Splashing Festival, the Yi Torch Festival and the Dali Third Month Fair are the year's highlights.

The high plateau, averaging over four thousand metres. Lhasa holds the Potala Palace and the Jokhang Temple; the north face of Mount Everest rises on its southern border.

Tibetan is co-official and written in its own script. Tibetan Buddhism shapes daily life; Losar (New Year), the Shoton "yoghurt festival" with its giant unveiled thangka, butter tea and tsampa are central traditions.

The cradle of imperial China. Xi'an, as ancient Chang'an, was the capital of the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang and the eastern end of the Silk Road; the Terracotta Army, the intact city wall and Mount Hua are all here.

The Guanzhong dialect of Central Plains Mandarin is spoken around Xi'an. Qinqiang is one of China's oldest operas; paper-cutting, the Lantern Festival, and wide "biangbiang" noodles are Shaanxi hallmarks.

A long province along the Hexi Corridor, the narrow Silk Road passage between desert and mountains. Dunhuang's Mogao caves hold a thousand years of Buddhist murals; Jiayuguan fort marks the western end of the Ming Great Wall.

Central Plains and Lanyin Mandarin meet Tibetan and Dongxiang here. Hua'er mountain songs, Dunhuang-inspired dance, and Lanzhou's hand-pulled beef noodle soup are the local culture.

A high, thinly populated province that gives rise to the Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong rivers. Qinghai Lake is China's largest; Kumbum is a major Tibetan-Buddhist monastery.

Mandarin, Tibetan and Mongolian are all spoken. Pilgrims circle Qinghai Lake on foot; Tibetan opera, and the international cycling race around the lake each summer, mark the calendar.

A small Hui autonomous region where the Yellow River creates a ribbon of farmland through dry country. The Western Xia royal tombs, Helan Mountain rock art and a fast-growing wine industry are its landmarks.

Zhongyuan Mandarin is spoken, with a strong Hui Muslim heritage, mosques, halal cuisine, and the widely observed Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

China's largest region, a Silk Road crossroads of the Tianshan mountains and the Taklamakan desert. Turpan is a below-sea-level oasis; Kashgar's old bazaar has traded for two millennia.

Uyghur, a Turkic language, is co-official with Mandarin; Kazakh and Kyrgyz are also spoken. The Twelve Muqam song suites are a UNESCO art; laghman noodles, pilaf and naan, and the festivals of Corban (Eid) and Nowruz define the year.