Discover China
An atlas you can walk into
From the drums of Chang'an to the lights of Lujiazui. Six volumes — dynasties, landscapes, food, playgrounds, futures, and the festival year. Every place here is one you can actually go to.
Preface
China, written as sentences you can still leave on
This is not a list. It is six volumes. Palaces and walls show how time was built; cloud-seas and coloured pools show how geology is looked at; hotpot and dumplings show how a place is tasted; parks show how the present entertains itself; high-speed rail and skylines show that the next stop is already laid. Open a page and you get a route, a season, and a longer account.
Six volumes
Pick a volume
01
Festivals
Traditions
A guide to China's traditional festivals — when each one falls, what you will see, what everyone eats, and which cities do it best.
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02
Dynasties
History
From the drums of Chang'an to the axis of the Forbidden City. Every palace is a piece of history you can still walk into.
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03
Landscapes
Nature
Seas of cloud, karst, coloured pools and sandstone pillars. In China the landscape is not a backdrop. It is the point of the journey.
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04
Cuisine
Taste
A pot of chilli oil, a roast duck, a steamer of dumplings. A place shows its character first on the tongue.
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05
Playgrounds
Play
The blue of an aquarium tunnel, ice lit from inside, a coaster over a garden roof. Contemporary China knows how to play.
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06
Futures
Now
The lights of Lujiazui, the skyline of Shenzhen, a Fuxing train through a valley. The next stop is already on the rails.
EnterA first cut
Start with these
20 places you can open
Landscapes · Huangshan, Anhui
Huangshan
The mountain is bone, the cloud is cloth
Dynasties · Xi'an, Shaanxi
Tang Chang'an
A seventh-century world city
Cuisine · Chengdu / Chongqing
Sichuan Hotpot
A thermometer for a table of people
Futures · Pudong, Shanghai
Lujiazui
The most photographed skyline in China
Landscapes · Aba, Sichuan
Jiuzhaigou
Water that turned minerals into colour
Playgrounds · Harbin, Heilongjiang
Harbin Ice and Snow World
Built from a whole river
The next stop is yours
History lives under Dynasties. Landscape under Landscapes. Food, playgrounds and futures can drop into any itinerary. If reading makes you want to go, we run the ground.