Theme parks

Window of the World and Splendid China世界之窗 · 锦绣中华

A genre that barely exists outside China and is worth seeing for that reason alone: parks of miniature monuments. Window of the World has a third-scale Eiffel Tower, a Taj Mahal, pyramids and a Manhattan skyline; next door, Splendid China does the same for Chinese landmarks, with a miniature Great Wall and Potala Palace alongside a folk-culture village performing the ethnic minority traditions of the whole country. They were built in the late 1980s and 90s when very few Chinese citizens could travel abroad, which is the entire explanation, and they have aged into something more interesting than they were designed to be.