50 tourist places in China that you should know

China is one of the 10 most visited countries in the world for its many tourist attractions, ranging from its traditional and modern cities, to its ancient culture.

Let’s know in this article the best 50 tourist places in China.

1. Macau

Macau is China’s “Las Vegas”, a tourist spot for gambling and betting fans; one of the richest cities in the world and with one of the highest standards of living.

The Sands and the Venetian are some of its most famous casinos. In the city you can also visit the Macao Tower, a 334-meter-high building.

Also read our guide on the 20 things to see and do in Las Vegas

2. The Forbidden City, Beijing

The Forbidden City is one of the tourist places in China that was once a royal palace that housed 24 emperors. An almost sacred place not accessible to the public.

The palace is an example of the extravagance with which constructions were carried out in ancient times. Each of the more than 8,000 rooms with gold-painted ceilings has a special and elegant design, with walls painted in red and yellow colors.

This palatial complex is, together with the Kremlin (Russia), the Casa Banca (United States), the Palace of Versailles (France) and Buckingham Palace (United Kingdom), one of the most important palaces in the world.

It was occupied for more than 500 years by the Ming and Qing dynasties, the end of which came in 1911 of the 20th century. Today it is a World Cultural Heritage Site declared by UNESCO and the Chinese know it colloquially as “The Palace Museum”, one that keeps treasures and historical and cultural relics of the country.

3. Fortress Towers, Kaiping

The fortress towers in Kaiping, a city just over 100 kilometers southwest of Guangzhou, were erected in the early 20th century to protect the population from robbery and war, and at the same time as a display of opulence.

There are a total of 1,800 towers in the middle of the city’s rice fields, which you can visit on a tour of its streets.

4. Shangri-La

This tourist spot is in China, not Tibet. A site of myths and stories to the northeast of Yunnan province.

Before it was called Zhongdian, a name that changed to its current denomination from 2002. Getting there involves making a trip by land from Lijiang or taking a plane flight.

It is a small and quiet place that can easily be traveled on foot to visit the Potatso National Park or the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery.

5. Li River, Guilin

The Li River is 83 kilometers long, enough to admire the surrounding scenery such as beautiful hills, farming villages, cliff areas, and bamboo forests.

National Geographic magazine has this huge body of water as one of its “Top Ten Aquatic Wonders of the World”; a river visited by personalities such as former presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. and by the creator of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

6. The Great Wall of China, Beijing

It is the largest ancient architecture on the planet and with its little more than 21 kilometers in length, the longest wall in the world. It is such a large work that it is possible to see it from the moon.

This feat of ancient world architecture, one of the New Seven Wonders of the Modern World and a World Heritage Site, was built as a defensive wall against foreign offensives that wanted to invade Chinese territory.

Its builders undertook the work along kilometers of rugged terrain, with steep mountainous areas and adverse climates.

The Great Wall runs from the western border of China to its coast, with landscapes of unparalleled beauty that serve as tourist attractions.

The best preserved areas are close to the city of Beijing.

7. Yellow Mountains

The Huang Mountains or Yellow Mountains are to the east of China, between Shanghai and Hangzhou, whose peaks are the best known in the country.

These mountains provide the tourist with five unforgettable spectacles such as sunrises, seas of clouds, strange rocks, hot springs and pine trees with twisted and bent trunks.

The region serves as the seat for one of China’s top three national parks: Yellow Mountain National Park. The other two are Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and Jiuzhaigou National Forest Park.

8. Shanghai

Shanghai is the economic “heart” of the People’s Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world with just over 24 million inhabitants.

The so-called “Asian Seattle” has great and numerous attractions to visit, such as the Bund neighborhood, an area with colonial features that mixes the European style of the 19th century with the current modern buildings.

In the Fuxing Park you can admire a gigantic area of trees, the largest in the entire area and see the city’s financial tower, an example of large buildings and modern constructions.

Shanghai is reached by plane and if you are in the country, by the national train system.

9. Huangguoshu Waterfall

Waterfall of 77.8 meters high and 101 meters long, which makes it the highest in the Asian continent and therefore, one of the tourist places in China.

This natural monument also known as the “Yellow Fruit Tree Waterfall” can be visited any month of the year, but the best season for it is June, July and August, when it is seen in all its splendor with an impressive flow of water of 700 cubic meters per second.

You can access this waterfall from Huangguoshu Airport, 6 kilometers away.

10. Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors remained hidden for more than 2,000 years until 1974, when farmers digging the earth stumbled upon them, an army of more than 8,000 stone statues of soldiers and horses.

The carved figures are of average size for the time and were built by the emperor, Qin Shin Huang, in the Qing dynasty to ensure the eternal fidelity and commitment of his soldiers.

In addition to being declared the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Terracotta Warriors were also declared World Cultural Heritage in 1987 and are considered one of the most important archaeological sites on the planet.

The thousands of these figures are in Shanxi province, very close to Xi’an, which is reached by taking a bus.

11. Guanyin Statue

At 108 meters high, the Guanyin statue is the fourth largest statue in China; one of its tourist places in the cultural district of Nanshan, in Hainan, 40 kilometers away from the center of the town of Sanya.

The “Buddhist goddess of mercy” has three sides facing, one facing mainland China, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The image was blessed in 2005 and is also considered one of the tallest statues on earth.

12. Saint Sophia Cathedral

Orthodox Church in the city of Harbin, the largest in East and Southeast Asia.

The neo-Byzantine style temple was built with 721 square meters and 54 meters high, by Russians expelled from their country who settled in the region.

It was built at the beginning of the 20th century so that at the end of the war between Russia and Japan, the Orthodox community would have a place of worship and prayer.

The Communist Party used it for 20 years as a warehouse. Now it is a museum where the architecture, art and heritage of the city are exhibited.

13. Giant Pandas, Chengdu

Panda bears are native to Chengdu, a tourist spot in China that has the Panda Valley in Dujiangyan, the Bifengxia Panda Base and the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center, the best place to see these attractive omnivorous mammals in China.

Chengdu Panda Center is to the north of the city, while the Bifengxia Base is a two-hour drive from Chengdu, where many of these animals are found in their natural environment.

14. Potala Palace, Tibet

It is the official residence of the Dalai Lama, where the well-known white palace is also located, a place where the religious and political life of Buddhists takes place.

The Potala Palace is in the Himalayan mountains at more than 3,700 meters and is the religious, spiritual and sacred center of the Chinese and the practices to honor the Buddha. The train service goes there.

The so-called “Palace of Eternal Wisdom” is in the autonomous region of Tibet and is one of the tourist places in China.

15. Yuyuan Garden

It is one of the most famous gardens in China built as a symbol of love from Pan Yunduan, Governor of Sichuan, towards his elderly parents. It is north of Shanghai, near the old wall.

One of its most photographed attractions is the large jade stone in the center of the garden, which exceeds more than 3 meters.

16. Brahma Palace

The Brahma Palace was built 88 meters high at the foot of the “Little Lingshan Mountain”, near the Taihu Lake and the Lingshan Giant Buddha.

This majestic work was built in 2008 for the Second World Forum of Buddhism. Inside, it has a luxurious theme park with gold decorations and a lot of glamour, all surrounded by mountains and rivers.

17.Wuyuan

A small town at the crossroads of Anhui, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces in eastern China, with fields full of beautiful flowers and a relaxed lifestyle, making it a great draw for tourists.

18. Xi’an City Wall

In addition to the Great Wall, China has the Xi’an city wall, a wall built more than 2,000 years ago as a symbol of power and to defend the country from foreign invasions.

The portions of this wall that can be admired today date from the year 1370, when the Ming dynasty reigned. At that time the wall was 13.7 kilometers long, 12 meters high and between 15 and 18 meters wide.

On a bike ride around the surroundings you will see unique views of the ancient capital of China.

19.Xian _

Ancestral city included in the ancient Silk Road (trade routes of the Chinese silk business from the 1st century BC) with records of the passage of the Qin dynasty.

It is a place with wide cultural value and great archaeological attraction for having the famous Terracotta Warriors and the Great Mosque, a building from the time of the Tang dynasty that shows the influence and relevance of the Islamic region in this Chinese region.

Xi’an can be reached by plane from anywhere in the world or by train if you are already in the country.

20. Beijing

With more than 21 million 500 thousand inhabitants, the capital of China is one of the most populated cities in the world; a city of myths, legends and much folklore.

Beijing is also one of the most industrialized cities on the planet, specifically in 2018 it ranked 11th out of 300 cities by GDP.

The Great Wall, the Forbidden City and a wide range of restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues are in the capital, a city where the memories of the glorious past of the dynasties are in harmony with modernism and progress.

21. Mount Wuyi

This World Heritage Site is a tourist spot in China from where the doctrines and precepts of Neo-Confucianism spread, a doctrine of wide influence in Asia from the 11th century.

The mount is 350 kilometers northwest of the city of Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, and can be reached by flight from Shanghai, Xi’an, Beijing or Guangzhou.

The bamboo raft ride drifting down the Nine Bend River is one of the other attractions here.

22. West Lake, Hangzhou

The “West Lake”, also known as “paradise on earth”, has an incomparable landscape due to a very well-structured design that makes it one of the tourist places in China.

West Lake was conceived as a manifestation of Chinese love for landscaped parks dedicated to recreation. On three of its sides it is surrounded by mountains, while on the fourth it shows the silhouette of the distant city.

A pagoda and an arch bridge in the purest Chinese style, together with large groves, islands of special greenery and colorful hills, complement this magnificent landscape.

23. Mogao Caves

The Mogao Caves comprise more than 400 underground temples of murals and literary scrolls from ancient times, in Gansu province.

The walls of the temples are covered with hundreds of murals dedicated to Buddhism, which are believed to have been built by the Buddhist, Lo-tsun, after he had a vision of thousands of Buddhas shining like flares from a cliff.

24. Tiger Leaping Gorge

A chain of mountain gorges north of the city of Lijiang, in Yunnan province, a place where you can practice hiking and other adventure sports.

Its name comes from the legend of a tiger that jumped over the longest point of the canyon to escape from a hunter. There you will find a route that can be traveled from the city of Quiaotou to the Daju region.

25.Yangshou

Yangshuo City is surrounded by mountains and mist; an extraordinary region of beautiful natural landscapes with lots of bamboo and other exotic species.

It is a tourist place in China that is visited to admire the most original hills and rivers of the country, in an excursion made by the river in bamboo boats.

Yangshuo also has in the Kanataka district the Dodda Alada Mara, which is more than 1,400 years old, and the ancient Longtan Villa, whose construction during the Ming dynasty dates back 400 years.

26.Hongcun Ancient Village

A 900-year-old town characterized by classic buildings and its peaceful atmosphere, which makes it a place of inspiration for poets, painters and art students.

Hongcun Ancient Village is 70 kilometers from Huangshan City, Anhui Province, with quartzite rock streets. You can see the work of the farmers in the rice fields, as well as the reflection of the facades of the houses in the waters of the lake.

27.Suzhou

Suzhou is one of the most beautiful cities in China, winner in 2014 of an award that recognized its urbanism, one made up of traditional Chinese architecture.

It is in Jiangsu province with a population of over 10 million people, which has the silk museum and the Humble Administrator’s Garden, examples of the history and tradition of the city.

Walking through the streets of Suzhou is like traveling to the period of the Tang or Qi dynasties, with what is known as urban planning in ancient China.

28.Hangzhou

This border city with Shanghai is one of the tourist places in China, capital of Zhejiang province, on the banks of the Qiantang River.

Hangzhou was home to one of the most important ports in the country during the various Chinese dynasties, as it was surrounded by lakes and temples.

Among its places of interest is Lake Xihu, one of the most beautiful with an extensive and varied flora, and the military mausoleum of Yue Fei, a soldier of great importance during the Song dynasty.

29. Yalong Bay

Beach in the province of Hainan of more than 7.5 kilometers in length on the south coast of Hainan, where surfing and other water sports are practiced.

30.Feng Huang

Another of the tourist places in China is Fenghuang, a city founded more than 1,300 years ago with 200 residential buildings, 20 streets and 10 alleys, all built during the Ming dynasty.

The city, whose houses are raised on stilts, is very visited by fans of art and literature, who come to pay homage to the Chinese writer, She Congwen, author of the “Frontier City”.

Fenghuang means phoenix.

31. Mount Lu

This UNESCO World Heritage Site (1996) is considered an emblem of China’s spirituality and culture, to which more than 1,500 painters and poets from both ancient and modern Chinese periods have come to find inspiration. .

One of these artists is Li Bai, a member of the Tang dynasty and Xu Zhimo, who traveled to this peaceful mountain in the 1920s and used it as a source of lighting to make his works.

32.Qinghai Lake

The Qinghai is the largest salt lake in China. It is 3,205 meters above sea level in Qinghai province, a height that does not prevent it from being one of the most touristic places in the country.

Once a year and during June and July, groups of people who have pedaled their bicycles arrive.

Every summer, the Qinghai Tour Lake National Cycling Race is held.

33. Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is the largest temple of its kind in the whole country, which makes it one of the tourist places in China. A place also considered the most mystical of the entire Asian nation.

The shrine is in the center of Tiantan Gongyuan Square, towards the southern region of Beijing.

At the Templo de las Rogativas, inside the enclosure, the faithful come to pray and ask for a good year for both themselves and their families.

34. Trestle Bridge, Qingdao

Over the so-called Yellow Sea, the Trestle Bridge has stood since 1892, one of the tourist attractions in China with as many years as the city of Qingdao, where it is built.

The work was erected to honor Li Hongzhan, an important statesman of the Qing dynasty. Now it is a 440 meter long emblem of the city.

At one of its ends, the Huilange pagoda was built, where exhibitions and cultural presentations are held throughout the year.

35. Hailuogou Glacier National Park

Magnificent park in Sichuan province with a glacier preceded by the legend of a Tibetan monk who transformed this wasteland while playing with his conch shell, attracting animals that began to live there.

The park is also known as “Conch Gully”, after the conch shell and the monk.

Although the glacier, which passes through mountains, forests, cliffs, rivers and peaks, can be visited at any time of the year, the best time of day to observe it is in the morning.

It has more than 10 hot springs flowing below, two of them open to the public; one is 2,600 meters high.

36. Nalati Grasslands

The name of these grasslands was given by one of the troops of the warrior Genghis Khan, who, impressed by the color of the meadows, called them Nalati, which in the Mongolian language means: “place where the sun rises”.

In this grassland, still a witness to Kazak practices and customs, as well as traditional sports, they are dedicated to raising falcons for hunting with inhabitants who live in yurts.

The best season to visit the grasslands is between May and October.

37. Pudacuo National Park

About 20% of China’s plant and tree species, as well as a significant percentage of the country’s animals and birds, are found in the wetlands that make up the Pudacuo National Park in Yunnan province.

This natural area of black-necked cranes and magnificent orchids complies with the guidelines of “The World Conservation Union”, a relevant global organization for environmental conservation.

38. Silk Market

Popular market in Beijing with more than 1,700 stalls selling shoes and clothes, all imitation, but at good prices.

39. Longji Rice Terraces

The Longji Rice Terraces are 1,500 meters high in Guanxi Province, a place that dates back to the Yuan dynasty.

Another site is the Jinkeng rice terraces, between the towns of Dhaza and Tiantou, perfect for taking pictures, making videos and spending time in healthy recreation.

40. Leshan Buddha

Huge statue of Buddha carved in stone between 713 and 1803 AD, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993.

At 71 meters tall, this architectural gem in all of China is the largest stone Buddha in the world. It is in Leshan city, Sichuan province.

It was a work undertaken during the Tang dynasty by the Buddhist monk, Haitong, to pray and give thanks for an end to the natural disasters caused by the Dadu and Ming rivers.

41. Karakul Lake

Beautiful lake at 3,600 meters above sea level formed by glacial water that mirrors the mountains that surround it. May through October are the best months to visit.

Getting to Karakul is not easy. You must travel through the Karakoram highway, one of the highest and most dangerous roads in the world due to its frequent landslides.

42. Three Pagodas, Dali

Dali is an ancient town in the southwest of the Yunnan province, where three Buddhist pagodas were built, the first erected in the 9th century to ask for the cessation of the floods; With its 69 meters height and 16 floors, it could be considered as a “skyscraper” for the Tang dynasty, its builders.

It continues to hold the position of the tallest pagoda in China, with each of its 16 levels adorned with Buddha statues.

The other two towers were built a century later and are each 42 meters high. Between the three they form an equilateral triangle.

43. Beijing Summer Palace

Palace built at the initiative of the Qianlong Emperor in 1750. It is on the shores of Kunming Lake with a large corridor, a 750-meter roofed space and decorated with more than 14 thousand paintings.

Emperor Guanxu was imprisoned in the Yulan pavilion for 10 years.

44. Yulong River

One of the most beautiful China tourist places of all. He is calm, relaxed and very peaceful.

Among its attractions are the Yulong Bridge, over 500 years old, built during the Ming dynasty; and the Xiangui Bridge, with 800 years of existence.

45. Hua Shan

Ideal mountain both for people who practice extreme sports such as mountaineering or parkour, as well as for taking pictures and recording videos.

46. Chengde Mountain Resort

Vacation and rest site during the Qing dynasty, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has beautiful and delicate gardens and a 70-meter pagoda.

Majestic land of large meadows, high mountains and quiet valleys, allow us to understand why it was chosen to vacation and rest.

47.Longtan Valley

The 12-kilometer-long Longtan Valley is ranked number one among the narrow gorges in China. It is defined by a strip of purple-red quartz sandstone.

The valley is irregular in shape, with lots of vegetation and large cliffs.

48. Shennongjia, Hubei

Natural reserve of 3,200 square kilometers with more than 5,000 species of plants and animals and home to the golden or flat monkeys, a rare species in China that is protected.

According to some legends, in this vast territory lives the “yeti”, a creature similar to the “bigfoot”.

49.Chengdu

It was known during the Han and Menchang dynasties as the city of brocades or hibiscus; It is the capital of Sichuan province and one of the tourist places in China.

It is a metropolis of great natural attractions such as the Wolong National Park, with more than 4,000 species under its protection, and the Wuhou temple, built to honor Zhuege Liang, a warrior from the Shu kingdom.

50.Hong Kong

Hong Kong leads the list of the most popular cities in China and the world. Its more than 25 million foreign tourists a year outnumber popular metropolises like New York, London and Paris, according to Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations 2019 report.

The city is so varied that on one day you can visit ancient temples and the next, spectacular modern skyscrapers, art galleries and fabulous nightlife and entertainment venues.

Hong Kong is also attractive for its perfect harmony between the ancient and ancient, with the modernity of today’s world.

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