UNESCO World Heritage in China

长

Great Wall (Mutianyu)

长城（慕田峪）

Beijing

The emperor's spine — best walked at Mutianyu

故

Forbidden City

故宫

Beijing

The world's largest imperial palace complex — 9,000 rooms of Ming and Qing power

兵

Terracotta Army

兵马俑

Xi'an

8,000 clay soldiers guarding an emperor's afterlife

莫

Mogao Caves

莫高窟

Dunhuang

A thousand years of Buddhist art carved into the desert

布

Potala Palace

布达拉宫

Lhasa

The 1,000-room palace that crowns Lhasa

丽

Lijiang Old Town

丽江古城

Lijiang

A Naxi stone town under snow-capped peaks

平

Pingyao Ancient City

平遥古城

Pingyao

The best-preserved walled city of Ming and Qing China

苏

Suzhou Classical Gardens

苏州古典园林

Suzhou

A thousand years of garden design in one city

颐

Summer Palace

颐和园

Beijing

The empress's lakeside retreat and its painted corridor

天

Temple of Heaven

天坛

Beijing

Where emperors prayed for the harvest under the blue-tiled sky

龙

Longmen Grottoes

龙门石窟

Luoyang

100,000 Buddhas carved into a riverside cliff

九

Jiuzhaigou Valley

九寨沟

Aba Prefecture

Turquoise lakes, waterfall terraces and Tibetan village life

黄

Huangshan (Yellow Mountain)

黄山

Huangshan

The granite peaks that inspired Chinese landscape painting

三

Mount Sanqingshan

三清山

Shangrao

A granite peak forest wreathed in cloud — sacred to Daoists, adored by hikers

土

Tusi Sites

土司遗址

Enshi

The fortified mountain domains of tribal chiefs who ruled the southwest for the emperor

左

Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art

左江花山岩画

Chongzuo

Red-painted figures on a river cliff — the world's largest ancient rock-art scene

鼓

Kulangsu (Gulangyu)

鼓浪屿

Xiamen

A car-free island of colonial villas, banyans and piano music off Xiamen

梵

Fanjingshan

梵净山

Tongren

A sacred Buddhist peak rising from the clouds of Guizhou

周

Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site

周口店北京人遗址

Beijing

The cave where the first Peking Man skull revealed half a million years of human ancestors

澄

Chengjiang Fossil Site

澄江化石地

Chengjiang

A 530-million-year-old seabed that rewrote the story of animal life

红

Honghe Hani Rice Terraces

红河哈尼梯田

Yuanyang

Sculpted mountains that turn from water mirror to gold to mist through the year

中

The Grand Canal

中国大运河

Beijing

The longest artificial waterway on earth — 1,700 km of engineering, trade and town life

丝

Silk Roads: Tianshan Corridor

丝绸之路天山廊道

Urumqi

A 5,000-km string of Silk Road cities, garrison towns and desert caravanserais

神

Shennongjia

神农架

Shennongjia

A primeval mountain forest where the legendary Wild Man is still said to roam

可

Hoh Xil

可可西里

Yushu

The largest uninhabited land in China — a high plateau of ice, salt lakes and wild antelope

良

Liangzhu Ancient City

良渚古城

Hangzhou

A 5,000-year-old walled capital that proves Chinese civilisation runs deeper than the Shang

黄

Migratory Bird Reserves

黄渤海候鸟栖息地

Yancheng

The mudflats and marshes that feed tens of millions of birds on the East Asian flyway

武

Mount Wuyi

武夷山

Nanping

Bamboo rafts, cliff coffins and the home of Da Hong Pao tea

大

Dazu Rock Carvings

大足石刻

Chongqing

A 1,000-year-old open-air gallery of Tantric Buddhism — including a thousand-handed goddess and a 31-metre sleeping Buddha