China is a vast country in East Asia, stretching from the high Plateau of Tibet in the west to the Pacific coast in the east.
The most famous wonders of China include the Great Wall, which crosses northern China, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Terracotta Army near Xi'an, and the Potala Palace in Lhasa. The Mogao Caves, the Yungang Grottoes, and the Longmen Grottoes are Buddhist cave temples filled with statues. The Leshan Giant Buddha, carved in the 8th century, sits in a hillside above the meeting point of three rivers.
The natural wonders of China range from the karst peaks of Guilin and the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie to the colored lakes of Jiuzhaigou, the granite peaks of Huangshan, and Mount Everest, on the border between China and Nepal. The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, a glittering medieval pagoda, is now a lost wonder.
China is a country in East Asia, on the coasts of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. China covers nearly all of the East Asian mainland.
The land of China is high in the west and low in the east, so the major rivers of China generally flow east. The Plateau of Tibet, in southwestern China, averages more than 4,000 m (13,000 ft) above sea level and is the highest and largest plateau in the world.
The northwest of China is dry, with true deserts in the Tarim Basin, the Gansu Corridor, and western Inner Mongolia. The Turpan Depression, in Xinjiang, drops to 155 m (508 ft) below sea level at Lake Ayding, one of the lowest places on Earth.
Most of the large cities of China lie in the eastern coastal provinces.
Yes, China is an independent country, officially called the People's Republic of China.
The People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong on 1 October 1949, from the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
China is a member state of the United Nations.
The official name of China is the People's Republic of China (PRC), or Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo in Mandarin Chinese. China is also known as Zhongguo in Chinese.
Mainland China refers to the 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government in Beijing. Mainland China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan.
Yes, China is in Asia, in the part of the continent called East Asia.
On the United Nations list of regions, China is in Eastern Asia, along with Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea.
China lies in the Northern Hemisphere.
China borders 14 countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam.
The neighbors of China lie in the following directions.
The land border of China is about 20,000 km (12,400 mi) long. The coastline of China runs for about 14,000 km (8,700 mi).
Across the sea, China faces South Korea and Japan over the Yellow Sea, and the Philippines beyond the South China Sea.
China covers 9,600,000 km² (3,706,600 sq mi), about one-fourteenth of the land area of Earth.
China is almost as large as the whole of Europe. China stretches about 5,250 km (3,250 mi) from east to west and 5,500 km (3,400 mi) from north to south.
About one-third of the total area of China is mountains.
No, China is slightly smaller than the United States, according to United Nations figures.
The United States covers 9,834,000 km² (3,796,900 sq mi), about 234,000 km² (90,300 sq mi) more than China. The United States is also larger on Britannica figures, with 9,866,632 km² (3,809,525 sq mi) for the United States and 9,572,900 km² (3,696,116 sq mi) for China.
Russia covers 17,098,000 km² (6,601,600 sq mi), about 1.8 times the area of China.
China's wonders span this huge area, from Ürümqi in the northwest to Shanghai on the east coast.
The map below shows the wonders in China. Click a pin to open a guide.
Yuyuan Garden is located in Anren Jie in the center of Shanghai's Old City, not far from the Bund and adjacent to the Old Town God Temple. It is a classical southern style Chinese garden. The garden covers an important space and includes a few halls, and other buildings of interest; cultural vestiges including century-old […]
This place is known like 'The First Scenery under Heaven'; The Yellow Crane Tower is one of the most famous towers to the south of the Rio Yangtze. It is situated on Snake Hill in Wuhan in the province of Hubei. The tower is based on an original design realized during the Qing Dynasty. The […]
The West Lake is located in the historic center of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province of eastern China, undoubtedly the most renowned feature of Hangzhou, noted for the scenic beauty that blends naturally with many famous historical and cultural sites. The West Lake Scenic Area Covers an area of 60 square kilometers, out of which the […]
Tiger Hill Pagoda or the Yunyan Pagoda is a Chinese pagoda situated outside Changmen, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The millennium old Tiger Hill Pagoda, also known as the Leaning Tower, stands on top of the Tiger Hill and is regarded as the symbol of Suzhou. Also it is called with its other names including Huqiu […]
Lingering Garden is the best garden in Suzhou, it covers an area of 23,310 square meters. It is recognised for its artistic way of dealing with the spaces between various kinds of architectural form. The whole garden possesses 42 rooms and halls , a 670-meter-long roofed walkway, 200 lattice-windows of different kinds, 44 parallel stone […]
The Terracotta Warriors and Horses are the most important archaeological excavations of the 20th century located lies 35 kilometres east of Xi'an, at the base of Lishan Mountain. Life size figures of terracotta warriors and horses arranged in battle formations are the star features at the museum. The museum covers an area of 16,300 square […]
Red Hill, also known as Tiger Head Hill or Tiger Head Peak, is considered a symbol of Urumqi, owing to its uniqueness; it is located at the heart of the city and the mountain peak stands 1391 meters above sea level. When the sunlight hits the hills of Hongshan, the rocks of the mountain reflected […]
This ancient architectural complex is considered a model of Tibetan architecture. Located on the Red Hill in Lhasa, Tibet, it is 3,700 meters above sea level and covers an area of over 360,000 square meters, measuring 360 meters from east to west and 270 meters from south to north. The present Potala Palace is 119 […]
Located at the east bank of Li River, the park is 1.5 kilometers from the downtown area of Guilin. The park is named after from its seven peaks resemble the pattern of the Big Dipper constellation. It is the largest park, consists of some of the most spectacular sights in the city. Some of the […]
Elephant Trunk Hill is located in the city center, on the western bank of Li River Scenery. The Elephant Hill sits in the point where Guilin Peach River joining to the Li River. Elephant Trunk Hill is regarded as the symbol of Guilin. Originally named "Li Hill", "Yi Hill" and "Chenshui Hill". The hill is […]
The Hanging Monastery or Temple is an architectural wonder. It was built on a cliff near Mount Heng in the province of Shanxi. The city is adjacent to Datong, 65 kilometers northwest. It is located at the foot of Heng Shan (Heng Mountain), 50 meters above the ground. The monks who built this temple had […]
The Flaming Mountain is located in north Turphan Basin of Xinjiang Province. The Flame Mountain starts from Langan Quicksand River of Shanshan County and ends at the Peach Channel in the Turpan Basin. It lies 10 km east of Turpan city, covering about 100 km from east to west with a width of 9 km. […]
What happened to the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing? Discover the glittering medieval wonder, how it was lost, and the hidden treasure found beneath it...
The Temple of Heaven, literally the Altar of Heaven is a complex of Taoist buildings; the Temple of Heaven is situated in the southern part of Beijing about 6 Km away from the centre of the city. It is three times the area of the Forbidden City and smaller than the Summer Palace with an […]
How long is the Great Wall of China, and which section should you visit? Official figures, history, tickets, hours and tips for your trip from Beijing or...
Discover the Forbidden City in Beijing: Emperors, legends and hidden corners. Plus plan your own visit with our guide to tickets, opening times and...
The Yungang Grottoes are an ancient Buddhist temple; it is located in Datong city in the Chinese province of Shanxi, with their 252 caves and 51,000 statues; represent the outstanding achievement of Buddhist cave art in China of the 5th and 6th centuries. The site is exactly located about 16 km south-west of the city, […]
The Stone Forest (Shilin) is situated in the Lunan Yu Autonomous County, 126 kilometers southeast of Kunming Qujing Prefecture in Yunnan Province, with an elevation ranging from 1,625 to 1,900 meters above sea level; it is known as the "First Wonder of the World ". The Stone Forest is connected with Kunming both by highway […]
The main ways to get to China are the following.
A US driver's license or an international driver's license is not valid for driving in China, so getting between the wonders of China means taking trains, planes, buses, taxis, or ride-shares.
The wonders of China lie in clusters across the following regions of China.
China has the largest high-speed railway network in the world, with high-speed lines from Beijing to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Harbin. A railway line from Qinghai province crosses the Plateau of Tibet to Lhasa.
Domestic flights link the regions of China, with 266 airports and regular flight services at the end of 2025.
Most people in China pay for goods and services with WeChat and Alipay, the two main mobile payment apps of China. Set up WeChat Pay or Alipay with your foreign bank card before you arrive, as the guide to the Great Wall of China explains. Carry some cash in renminbi as a backup, although some vendors in China do not accept cash or cannot give change. Credit cards work mainly in large international stores and hotels in China.
The most popular US social media platforms are banned in China. Using a VPN, a virtual private network that gets around the bans, is illegal in China in most cases. The penalties for using a VPN in China include confiscation of the device, a fine, or detention.
Every foreign visitor to China must register within 24 hours of arrival at each new place of stay. Register with the staff at your hotel, or at the local police station. Carry your passport and Chinese visa at all times in China.
Tap water in China is generally not safe to drink, so drink bottled water with an intact seal.
Have the name of your destination written in Chinese characters to show taxi drivers in China.
Many places in Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Sichuan lie above 3,000 m (10,000 ft), where altitude sickness is a risk. Avoid hard physical activity at high altitude in China until your body adjusts.
The best time to visit China is in spring, from April to May, or in fall, from September to October. Spring and fall bring comfortable daytime temperatures in China of about 10°C (50°F) to 23°C (73°F).
The climate of China changes with the seasons in the following ways.
Rainfall in China decreases from the southeast coast to the deserts of the northwest.
Avoid traveling at Chinese New Year, a seven-day public holiday in late January or early February, or book your transport well ahead. Chinese New Year brings the largest human migration in the world, as people in China travel home. National Day, in the first week of October, also fills the tourist sites of China with domestic travelers.
The best months for Beijing, with Beijing temperatures, are listed under Visiting in the Forbidden City guide.
Yes, US citizens generally need a visa to visit China, which you should apply for before you travel.
Most US citizens are eligible for a 10-year multiple-entry tourist visa for China. Your passport must be valid for at least 6 months beyond your arrival in China, with at least 2 blank pages.
US citizens enter China without a visa only in the following limited cases.
A visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region needs a special Tibet permit as well as a Chinese visa. Travel agents in China arrange Tibet permits.
You must have a valid visa to leave China, so leave before your permitted stay ends.
Entry rules for China change often, so check the US State Department page for China before you book.
Yes, China is safe to visit with increased caution, which is Level 2 on the US State Department's 4-level travel advisory scale.
Mainland China is at Level 2 because local laws are enforced arbitrarily, exit bans are used, and there is a risk of unjust arrest or detention. China's national security laws give officials broad powers to detain or question foreign nationals.
The following groups of US citizens face a higher risk of being targeted by the authorities in China.
Hong Kong is also at Level 2 on the US travel advisory. Macau is at Level 3, reconsider travel, because the US government has a limited ability to give emergency help to US citizens in Macau.
Security checks, heavy police presence, and surveillance are common in Xinjiang and Tibet. Authorities in Xinjiang and Tibet impose curfews and travel restrictions on short notice.
Violent crime is uncommon in China. Most visitors find China a safe destination. Pickpocketing is common on crowded buses and subways in China. Dial 110 for the police in an emergency in China.
Road traffic in China is dangerous. Pedestrians in China do not have the right of way, even on a green walk light at a marked crossing.
Avoid demonstrations in China. Never photograph protesters or police in China without permission.
China does not have one official list of seven wonders.
The following wonders of China appear on the official wonder lists.
China is known for the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Army, and more than 4,000 years of recorded history.
The Terracotta Army, also called the Terracotta Warriors, surrounds the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unite China, near Xi'an.
The Potala Palace, the former winter palace of the Dalai Lama, rises from Red Mountain in the center of the Lhasa Valley.
China is also the home of the giant panda, protected in the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Beijing is the capital of China. Once written Peking in English, Beijing is also the cultural, economic, and communications center of China.
Beijing has been at the center of Chinese history for eight centuries. Nearly every major old building in Beijing has some national historical importance.
Beijing became the capital of the Ming emperors in the 15th century, when the Forbidden City was built as their palace. Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing in 1949, and Beijing became the capital of the new state.
Shanghai is the largest city in China by population. The municipality of Shanghai is also the most populous urban area in China.
Shanghai lies on the coast of the East China Sea, near the mouth of the Yangtze River. The port of Shanghai is one of the largest seaports in the world. Shanghai was one of the first Chinese ports opened to Western trade, and the city is now a major industrial and commercial center of China.
The Yuyuan Garden, a classical Chinese garden, stands in the Old City of Shanghai.
China has a population of about 1.405 billion, according to the official count of China for the end of 2025.
The population of China fell by 3.39 million during 2025, to 1,404.89 million. China recorded 7.92 million births and 11.31 million deaths in 2025.
About 954 million people, or 67.9% of the population of China, live in towns and cities.
India passed China as the most populous country in the world in 2023, according to United Nations estimates.
The official population count of China covers mainland China only.
Mandarin Chinese is the official language of China.
Mandarin, also called Putonghua, meaning "common language", is the most widely spoken Chinese language. The Beijing dialect of Mandarin is the basis of the national language of China.
Han Chinese, the vast majority of China's population, speak several mutually unintelligible Chinese dialects, meaning a speaker of one dialect does not understand another. Cantonese, the best known of the southern dialects, is spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and southern Guangxi. The written Chinese characters are shared across all the dialects.
Minority peoples of China speak their own languages, including Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uighur, a Turkic language of Xinjiang.
China uses the renminbi (RMB), whose unit is the yuan. One yuan is divided into 10 jiao or 100 fen.
The People's Bank of China has the only right to issue the renminbi. Renminbi became the official name of the currency of China in 1969. The face of Mao Zedong appears on several renminbi banknotes.
The cash limit for each traveler entering or leaving China is RMB 20,000.
China is in China Standard Time (CST), also called Beijing Time, which is 8 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC+8).
China uses one time zone for the whole country, although China spans five geographical time zones. China adopted the single time zone in 1949, under Mao Zedong.
Clocks in China stay the same all year because China does not use daylight saving time. China is 13 hours ahead of New York and Washington, D.C., during US Eastern Standard Time. From March to November, when US clocks go forward, China is 12 hours ahead of the US East Coast.
China does not have an official religion. The People's Republic of China has been officially atheist since 1949.
Citizens of China have freedom of religious belief under the Constitution of China. Religious practice in China is permitted only within a small number of government-approved organizations. About half of the people of China say they are nonreligious or atheist.
Chinese folk religions, followed by about one-fifth of the population, form the largest religious group in China. China is the birthplace of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism). Buddhism was a recognized religion in China by the 1st century AD. Most Buddhists and Muslims in China belong to minority peoples, such as the Tibetans and the Uighurs. Christians are a small but growing minority in China.
Missionary activity is effectively illegal in China.
Yes, China is a communist country. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has controlled the government of China since 1949.
The People's Republic of China is "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants", in the words of Article 1 of the Constitution of China. China is a single-party state, with one legislative house, the National People's Congress.
Real decision-making power in China lies with the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council, China's top executive body. The Chinese Communist Party has more than 85 million members.
Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death in 1976.
Yes, Hong Kong is part of China as a special administrative region since 1 July 1997.
Hong Kong was a British Crown colony for 156 years before the handover to China in 1997. Under the "one country, two systems" principle, Hong Kong keeps a high degree of self-rule, with its own capitalist economy and legal system. The government in Beijing controls the defense and foreign affairs of Hong Kong.
Macau, a Portuguese trading post from the 16th century, returned to Chinese rule in 1999. Macau runs under the same "one country, two systems" principle as Hong Kong.
Whether Taiwan is part of China is disputed. The People's Republic of China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, but Taiwan has had its own separate government, the Republic of China (ROC), since 1949.
Taiwan is an island in the western Pacific Ocean, about 160 km (100 mi) off the southeast coast of China, across the Taiwan Strait.
In 1949, after the Chinese communist armies defeated the Nationalist forces on the mainland, the Nationalist government and armies fled to Taiwan. The Republic of China government, based in Taipei, maintains that Taiwan rules itself.
The political status of Taiwan remains a sensitive international issue.
China has 22 provinces. The provinces sit alongside 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and 2 special administrative regions, making 33 administrative units directly under the central government.
The 5 autonomous regions of China are Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Tibet, and Xinjiang, each home to a large minority population. The 4 municipalities are Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing. The 2 special administrative regions are Hong Kong and Macau.
The People's Republic of China also counts Taiwan as a province of China.
The provinces of China date in their current form from the Tang dynasty (618 to 907).
The Yangtze River is the longest river in China, at 6,300 km (3,915 mi), and the longest river in Asia. Worldwide, the Yangtze ranks third in length.
The Yangtze River rises from glacial meltwater on the slopes of the Tanggula Mountains, in southern Qinghai province. From the Plateau of Tibet, the Yangtze flows east across China to the East China Sea, near Shanghai.
The Three Gorges Dam, completed on the Yangtze in 2006, stands just west of the city of Yichang, in Hubei province.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in China, and the highest mountain in the world. Mount Everest rises in the Himalayas, on the frontier between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
The Chinese name for Mount Everest is Qomolangma Feng.
The height of Mount Everest, the history of its climbs, and the ways to see it from Nepal or Tibet are covered in the guide to Mount Everest.