Atlas Matrix

Yellow Mountain

Famed for its peculiar pines, grotesque rocks, sea of clouds, and hot springs — the aesthetic matrix and inspiration wellspring of Chinese landscape painting.

Zhangjiajie

Three thousand sandstone pillars rising like celestial armies — the real-life prototype for the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Avatar.

Mount Hua

The most precipitous mountain under heaven — a single knife-edged ridge, one path up since antiquity, daring climbers to this day.

Himalayas

The Third Pole of Earth, the rooftop of the world — the ultimate product of plate collision, the backbone of Asia and a sky-high defensive line that never falls.

Loess Plateau

A thick highland blown together by windblown dust — soft, fertile, and easy to till, where China's earliest ancestors sowed the first sparks of agrarian civilization.

Sichuan Basin

A purple-soil basin ringed by mountains on all sides — the cradle of the Land of Abundance, a natural sanctuary and rear granary for dynasties in chaos.

Tibetan Plateau

The world's highest plateau, known as the Asian Water Tower — the source of both the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the master dispatch tower of China's water system.

Mount Emei

Golden summit Buddha's light reflected in a sea of clouds — a vertical cliff soaring three thousand meters, four seasons in one mountain, ten landscapes in ten miles.

Ngari

A high-altitude frozen desert of extreme aridity — its absolute physical isolation gave birth to the mysterious Guge Kingdom and Zhangzhung civilization.

Qaidam

A high-altitude inland treasure basin — desolate on the surface, yet beneath lies an extraordinary wealth of salt lakes and mineral resources.

Guilin Landscape

The finest scenery under heaven — the Li River threading through a forest of karst peaks, the quintessential Chinese ink-wash landscape and aesthetic ideal.

Mount Yandang

The premier mountain of the southeast — its rhyolite cliffs cut like knife and axe, breaking Jiangnan's gentle aesthetics with hard geometric lines.

Mount Lu

A cultural mountain of matchless beauty — waterfalls, drifting clouds, swirling mist, where four thousand poems and essays were left by generations of literati.

Qinling

The towering Qinling dividing north from south — China's natural climate and species boundary, the very spine separating wheat from rice civilization.

Changbai Mountain

The highest volcano in Northeast Asia — Heaven Lake resting quietly at the summit, one mountain straddling three nations, sacred to both Manchu and Korean peoples.

Mount Tai

Foremost of the Five Sacred Peaks, where emperors performed the Fengshan rites — rising abruptly from the North China Plain, symbolizing dynastic stability and legitimacy.

Yangtze River

Asia's longest river, flowing six thousand kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea — the aorta and golden waterway of Chinese civilization.

Yellow River

China's Mother River — nine bends carrying a billion tons of loess to the sea, nurturing the earliest cradle of Chinese agrarian civilization.

Lake Tai

The heart of the Jiangnan water country — thirty-six thousand hectares of misty expanse, nourishing the richest land of fish and rice around Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing.

Poyang Lake

China's largest freshwater lake, the natural reservoir and breathing valve of the Yangtze — each winter, a million migratory birds stop here to rest and feed.

Dongting Lake

Eight hundred li of Dongting in misty vastness — the remnant of the ancient Yunmeng Marsh, powering the miracle 'when Huguang ripens, all under heaven is fed'.

Qinghai Lake

China's largest inland salt lake — its Tibetan name means 'turquoise sea,' an azure jewel on the Plateau and a paradise for migratory birds.

Pearl River

South China's greatest water system, weaving the golden water grid of the Pearl River Delta — China's blue-economy gateway facing the South China Sea and connecting to the world.

Tarim River

A hidden river flowing silently beneath the Taklamakan Desert — fed by Tianshan snowmelt, the underground lifeline sustaining desert oases.

Qiantang River

The world's greatest tidal bore — every year on the eighteenth day of the eighth lunar month, a wall of water roars into Hangzhou Bay with earth-shaking fury.

Namtso

One of Tibet's three sacred lakes, the highest salt lake in the world — its waters mirror snow peaks and starry skies, pure as heaven's looking glass.

Sun Moon Lake

Taiwan's largest natural lake, a sapphire jewel embraced by mountains — gauzy morning mist, fiery sunset glow, the sacred waters where the Thao ancestral spirits rest.

Weishan Lake

The largest lake north of the Yangtze, strung together by the Grand Canal — ten thousand acres of lotus, a thousand sails racing, guarding the throat of north-south water transport.

Li River

The Li River winding like a jade ribbon through a forest of peaks — where the water is still, green mountains mirror themselves, forming the ultimate template of 'landscape as painting' in the Chinese imagination.

Heilongjiang River

The Sino-Russian border river, China's northernmost great river — frozen for half the year, guarding the northeastern frontier's frigid defense line and fertile lands.

Lancang River

A great international river surging down from the Tibetan Plateau — cutting through deep gorges in Yunnan before nourishing the entire Indochina Peninsula downstream as the Mekong.

West Lake

Three sides of cloud-wreathed hills embracing a city — China's most poetic urban lake, Broken Bridge in lingering snow, Spring Dawn at Su Causeway, the soul of Jiangnan for two thousand years.

Tarim Basin

China's largest desert basin — bone-dry yet rich in oil and gas buried below, the most awe-inspiring forbidden zone on the ancient Silk Road.

Shennongjia

The roof of central China, a mysterious realm on the thirtieth parallel north — rumored home of the Wild Man, a primeval forest preserving vast numbers of ancient relict plants.

Hengduan Mountains

Several thousand meters of vertical drop compress tropical to frigid ecosystems onto a single mountain — an ultimate three-dimensional ecological corridor where one mountain holds all four seasons.

Xishuangbanna

The only tropical rainforest north of the Tropic of Cancer — homeland of elephants and peacocks, China's richest terrestrial biodiversity treasury.

Changbai Forest Region

The vast forest sea where the Lesser Khingan and Changbai ranges meet — abundant in Korean pine and premium timber, the lumber mother port for dynastic palaces and naval fleets.

Ejina

A poplar forest belt on the edge of the Badain Jaran Desert — living a thousand years, standing dead a thousand more, the iron-blooded warrior fighting desertification at the front line.

Min Mountains / Qionglai Mountains

The last home of the giant panda — the bamboo forests of the Min and Qionglai ranges provide the ultimate refuge for this low-metabolic-rate marvel of evolution.

Jiuzhaigou

A fairyland of travertine pools and colorful forests — a pristine world deep in the highlands, a dazzling jewel of UNESCO World Natural Heritage.

Southern Qinling Foothills

Terraced fields and streams weave a network on the southern slopes of Qinling — where the last wild crested ibis was rediscovered, scripting a miracle of species resurrection from the brink of extinction.

Junggar Wilds

The vast gobi desert stretching from the Junggar Basin to the Mongolian Plateau — once the ancestral homeland where Przewalski's horses galloped free.

Hoh Xil

The uninhabited zone of the Third Pole — where Tibetan antelope stage their spectacular annual migration in one of the least-touched wildernesses on Earth.

Tianshan Mountains

Deep in the arid continental interior, a miracle of spruce forests clings to mountain slopes thousands of kilometers from any ocean — a high-altitude green reservoir suspended in the desert.

Yangtze Estuary Wetlands

Where Yangtze sediment meets the sea, accumulating into tidal flats — the core refueling station on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway for millions of migratory birds.

South China Mangroves

A green Great Wall in the intertidal zones of the southeast coast — viviparous plants rooting in salt water, a natural coastal buffer against typhoons and storm surges.

Wuyi Mountain Tea Region

The birthplace of black tea and oolong — the Danxia microclimate and mineral-saturated soil of the authentic rock-tea zone perfectly transcode geology into the world's finest tea aromas.

Hainan Tropical Scrub

A unique savanna-scrub ecosystem on a tropical island — shaped by long-term geographic isolation, nurturing endemic species like the Hainan Eld's deer.

Grand Canal

The world's longest man-made waterway — crossing five major river systems to connect north and south, continuously pumping southern grain and wealth into the empire's heart.

Dujiangyan

A two-thousand-year-old dam-free irrigation miracle — the fish-mouth divider, the flying-sand weir, and the bottle-neck channel still irrigating the Chengdu Plain's Land of Abundance today.

Great Wall

The longest military fortification in human history — winding ten thousand li along the northern ridges, guarding the boundary of agrarian civilization for two millennia.

Qin Straight Road

The ancient expressway built by Qin Shi Huang — a geometric military corridor stretching seven hundred kilometers straight along the loess ridge, enabling cavalry to reach the frontier in three days.

Lingqu Canal

Qin Shi Huang's canal cutting through the Xiang-Li watershed to connect the Yangtze and Pearl River systems — China's first cross-basin artificial waterway.

Zhengguo Canal

An irrigation canal that diverted silt-laden Jing River water to transform Guanzhong's saline-alkali land — a single engineering project that directly fueled Qin's war machine to conquer the six states.

Hangu Pass

The natural choke point between the Xiao Mountains and the Yellow River — one man holding the pass against ten thousand, the most vital strategic gateway between ancient Guanzhong and the Central Plains.

Jianmen Pass

Seventy-two peaks standing like blades in confrontation where the Daba Mountains fractured — the only passage into Shu, nature's security black-box for separatist regimes.

Yanmen Pass

The perilous pass in the Heng Mountains — for millennia, one of the core defense lines where agrarian civilization withstood the high-intensity shock of northern nomadic cavalry.

Yumen Pass

The Silk Road's western gateway — where the Han dynasty established the Protectorate of the Western Regions, the empire's westernmost terminal for exercising sovereignty over Inner Asia.

Liuhe Pagoda

A thousand-year-old pagoda on the Qiantang riverside — both a tide-taming lighthouse and a spiritual monument to humanity's architectural will confronting the river's nonlinear fury.

Huizhou Water Outlet Works

Landscaped water exits at Huizhou village stream mouths — a hydraulic damping system built through rock-stacking, tree-planting, and bridge-building, intelligently regulating the village microclimate.

Karez

Turpan's underground canal miracle — delivering Tianshan snowmelt to oases with zero evaporation loss, ranked alongside the Great Wall and Grand Canal as one of ancient China's three greatest engineering feats.

Qiantang Seawall

Hundreds of kilometers of stone seawall lying like a dragon — precision mortise-and-tenon joinery resisting violent tidal bores, defending the security of Jiangnan's wealthiest region.

Tongji Canal

Emperor Yang of Sui's super waterway network — a herringbone pattern connecting the entire empire, maximizing the bandwidth for pumping Jiangnan wealth to the imperial center.

Three Gorges Plank Road

A suspended walkway carved into the vertical cliffs of the Three Gorges — trackers and soldiers clawing out a logistics miracle against heaven-defying terrain with bare hands.

Hexi Corridor

The narrow oasis belt pinched between the Qilian Mountains and the desert — the golden passage of the Silk Road, Chinese civilization's sole overland corridor into the heart of Eurasia.

Hulunbuir

China's finest natural grassland — an endless green ocean that supplied the nomadic cavalry beyond the Great Wall with an unceasing stream of warhorses and livestock.

Ordos

The semi-arid plateau enclosed by the Yellow River's great horseshoe bend — a suspended sword over Guanzhong and the Central Plains, the drill ground where farmers and herders clashed across history.

Turpan

China's lowest point and hottest place — extreme aridity and solar radiation producing the sweetest melons and the Karez underground canal experimental field.

Ili River Valley

Where the Tianshan tears open a gap to capture Atlantic westerly moisture — a miraculous 'Jiangnan beyond the frontier' flourishing in the heart of the continent's extreme arid zone.

Junggar Basin

A semi-enclosed basin pinched between the Altai and Tianshan ranges — with lush pastures and a strategic position, the core base of successive nomadic empires.

Irtysh Valley

China's only river flowing north into the Arctic Ocean — cutting a green corridor through the extreme arid interior, concealing the gold and boreal forests of the Altai Mountains.

Altun Mountains

The hyper-enclosed uninhabited zone at the junction of the Kunlun and Qilian ranges — extreme altitudinal isolation creating a forbidden zone of life and the ultimate backup vault for Tibetan antelope and wild yak.

Qilian Mountains

A high-altitude glacier belt straddling the south side of the Hexi Corridor — its endless frozen reservoir drip-irrigating the entire lifeline of the Silk Road.

Greater Khingan Range

The steep ecological fault where taiga forest transitions abruptly to arid Mongolian steppe — the evolutionary cradle from which northern nomadic, hunting, and fishing peoples emerged from the forest onto the grassland to begin their conquest of the Central Plains.

Juyan Lake

A terminal oasis where the Heihe River dies into the Badain Jaran Desert — the Han dynasty's extreme northern outpost, where military wooden slips were unearthed, a forward server of the Qin-Han empire in the Gobi.

Ulanbutong

The grand grassland battlefield where the Kangxi Emperor personally led his army to crush the Zunghar threat — a rolling meadow arena that decided the final shape of the empire's northern frontier.

Xilingol Steppe

The quintessential temperate steppe of the Inner Mongolian Plateau core — the central stage and geopolitical buffer zone of nomadic courts through Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

Zanda

The site of the ancient Guge Kingdom — a colossal forest of yardang earth pillars carved by water erosion, a giant maze of clay geometries secretly hiding a vanished kingdom in extreme desolation.

Bayinbuluke

Alpine wetlands deep in the Tianshan, formed by the nine bends and eighteen meanders of the Kaidu River — the swans' homeland and the nomadic high-altitude liquid pasture.

Lop Nur

The burial ground of the Loulan Kingdom — a once-vast lake desiccated entirely into a giant ear-shaped salt crust, sealing and encrypting a thousand years of Silk Road exploration memory.

Taiwan Island

China's largest island, an emerald screen in the western Pacific — compressing ecosystems from tropical rainforest to alpine tundra, a micro-continent of global biodiversity.

Zhoushan Archipelago

China's largest archipelago — over a thousand islands scattered like pearls in the East China Sea, the empire's forward-deployed natural aircraft carrier group guarding the confluence of river and sea.

Quanzhou

The world's largest port during the Song and Yuan dynasties, the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road — where Marco Polo beheld the Zaytun city in full bloom, the Orient's greatest harbor.

Huangpu Port & Shibosi Site

The ancient port and customs office of Guangzhou — China's first national-level maritime trade authority, witnessing the prosperity of the Age of Discovery on the South China Sea.

Hainan Island

China's second-largest island, a tropical paradise of coconut breezes and ocean waves — where Su Dongpo in exile wrote 'Hainan, ten thousand li, truly my homeland.'

Penghu Islands

A chain of basalt islets in the middle of the Taiwan Strait — fishing lights and ancient village houses, the historic relay station and forward fortress between the two shores.

Jiaozhou Bay

A superb natural deep-water harbor on the south coast of the Shandong Peninsula — the ultimate geopolitical focal point over which modern powers fought for a century to control North China.

Min River Estuary

The winding waterway where the Min River breaks through the Zhejiang-Fujian hills to strike the East China Sea — rugged terrain that birthed the unofficial private maritime trade and pirate legends of the Ming-Qing era.

Yangtze Estuary

Where the Yangtze ends — sediment colliding with the sea, extending China's territory into the Pacific millimeter by millimeter each year, the nation's newest living land.

Miaodao Islands

A chain of stepping-stone islets locking the Bohai Strait between the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas — the final iron chain of maritime defense guarding the capital region.

Ningbo

Where the Grand Canal and the Maritime Silk Road intersect in a perfect cross — a nationally chartered gateway for tributary trade and logistics with Japan and Korea across the ages.

Leizhou Peninsula

One of China's three great peninsulas — like a rigid needle thrust into the South China Sea, a continental forward antenna facing and managing the Beibu Gulf.

Weizhou Island

The youngest volcanic island in the Beibu Gulf — dotted with sea caves carved by erosion, a natural monitoring tower China has deployed in the southern blue-water commons.

Yancheng Coast

The vast silt tidal flats of northern Jiangsu forcibly deposited by the old Yellow River — the empire's inexhaustible sea-salt factory, the material bedrock of the ancient salt-and-iron monopoly.

Wenzhou

A natural deep-water port wedged in the crevice of the Zhejiang-Fujian mountains — from here, Wenzhou merchants departed with the monsoon winds, laying their commercial networks across the entire globe.

South China Sea Islands

Coral atolls, reefs, and shoals scattered across millions of square kilometers of deep-blue sea — the most extreme physical extension of Chinese sovereignty into the open ocean.

Jingdezhen

The thousand-year porcelain capital — where kaolin clay and Chang River water combine to produce the synonym for Chinese ceramics, the porcelain fountainhead of the Maritime Silk Road.

Yangzhou

The wealth crossroads where the Grand Canal meets the Yangtze — the center of the imperial salt monopoly, birthing Yangzhou's extravagant salt-merchant culture and aesthetics.

Wuzhen

The quintessential Jiangnan water town of small bridges, flowing streams, and waterside homes — covered corridors stretching for miles along the river, China's most beautiful and lived-in waterside settlement.

Suzhou

A dual-chessboard ancient city of parallel waterways and streets — precision hydraulic logistics networks seamlessly embedded with literati refinement into the urban fabric.

Pingyao Ancient City

China's best-preserved Ming-Qing walled city — the financial headquarters of Shanxi merchants, the inland Wall Street that once routed the empire's entire silver circulation.

Fenghuang Ancient Town

A Xiangxi frontier town on the Tuo River — stilted houses perched tier upon tier on both sides of the steep valley, the collision zone of Miao and Tujia cultures with the Han frontier wall.

Hongcun

An ox-shaped biomimetic ancient village in Anhui — driven by gravity-flow water channels, Moon Pond as the stomach, water ditches as intestines, the most beautiful traditional Chinese ink-wash painting village.

Xitang

Xitang's Misty Rain Corridor — kilometers of covered waterside arcades winding like a dragon, a bottom-up human-scale commercial interface self-organized by commoners without any official planning.

Langzhong Ancient City

Langzhong at the great omega bend of the Jialing River — ringed by mountains on four sides and water on three, the ultimate living specimen of classical Chinese fengshui site-selection algorithm.

Shaxi Ancient Town

The only surviving market town on the Tea Horse Road — a dense plaza unit of red-earth fortress, ancient stage, and horse inns, a high-altitude international trade router carved by muleteers' flesh and blood.

Lijiang Ancient Town

A Naxi city at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain — unwalled, spring water flowing freely through every street, a fluid space of free trade and multicultural convergence breaking all Han axial orthodoxy.

Kaiping Diaolou

Fortified tower clusters built by returned overseas Chinese in Guangdong's Siyi region — reinforced concrete castles blending Chinese and Western architecture, recording a century of diaspora and homecoming.

Jiufen

A mountainside mining town in Taiwan — narrow stone steps and red lanterns sketching a Spirited Away fantasy of mountain-and-sea nightscape.

Wudianshi

A dense lineage-based red-brick settlement on the southern Fujian coast — swallowtail ridges and brick-in-stone craftsmanship, witnessing the wealth and faith of Minnan clans on the Maritime Silk Road diaspora.

Foshan

The heavy-industry town of the Ming-Qing era — a dense cluster of private iron-smelting, casting, and textile workshops, the most famous civilian industrial antenna of medieval China powering ironware exports to Southeast Asia.

Tunxi Old Street

A fishbone-shaped old street on the Xin'an River crystallized by Huizhou merchant mountain-goods wharfs — the starting line from which Huizhou's white silver was pumped outward along the Xin'an bus.

Zhouzhuang

China's No.1 water town; Chen Yifei's painting of the Double Bridges introduced this millennium-old town to the world; Shen Hall and Zhang Hall testify to Ming-Qing merchant wealth.

Xidi

UNESCO World Heritage; well-preserved Ming-Qing Hui-style houses; Hu Wenguang Archway and Pursuit Hall carry the Hu clan's ancestral glory.

Nanxun Ancient Town

Jiangnan water town as a Chinese-Western architectural fusion; silk magnate Zhang Shiming's former residence and Hundred Rooms Alley showcase modern Jiangnan prosperity.

Dali Ancient City

Capital of the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms; a scholarly city between Cangshan and Erhai; the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple embody a millennium of Buddhist heritage.

Huizhou Ancient City

Cradle of Hui culture; the Xu Guo Stone Archway and Huizhou merchants' hometown condense a thousand years of Huizhou heritage and commerce.

Zhenyuan Ancient City

Millennium-old military-trade post on the Wulong River; the Qinglong Cave complex hangs from sheer cliffs; Zhusheng Bridge spans the two banks.

Zhujiajiao Ancient Town

Shanghai's premier water town; Fangsheng Bridge arches over Caogang River; Kezhi Garden epitomizes Jiangnan garden elegance.

Wuyuan Ancient Town

China's most beautiful countryside; rapeseed blossom seas and white-walled Hui-style houses compose a golden Jiangnan scroll.

Huangyao Ancient Town

Millennium-old town embraced by karst peaks; Dailong Bridge and the Immortal's Ancient Well preserve authentic Lingnan life.

Heshun Ancient Town

Overseas Chinese hometown on the Southwest Silk Road; China's largest rural library and Ai Siqi's former residence mark this borderland cultural hub.

Shuhe Ancient Town

Best-preserved caravan stop on the Ancient Tea Horse Road; Qinglong Bridge and Naxi houses retain the rustic charm of horse-caravan days.

Ciqikou Ancient Town

Chongqing's thousand-year-old dock town; Bayu folkways and mountain-city life converge; Chen Mahua twists and Maoxuewang tripe are famous far and wide.

Mudu Ancient Town

Foremost garden town of central Wu; Emperor Qianlong visited six times; Yan's Garden and Hongyin Mountain House epitomize Jiangnan refinement.

Luzhi Ancient Town

Tang-dynasty arhat sculptures at Baosheng Temple are national treasures; a bridge every few steps in this water town; Ye Shengtao taught and wrote here.

Anchang Ancient Town

Hometown of shifu private advisers and Shaoxing rice wine; the December festival drapes streets with cured duck and sausage — Jiangnan's most lived-in water town.

Jinxi Ancient Town

Museum town of China; Consort Chen's water tomb and ancient kilns bear witness to Southern Song heritage; bridge density unmatched in Jiangnan.

Furong Ancient Town

Thousand-year-old town suspended over a waterfall; the Qin-Han Western Youyang city site; Tujia stilted houses hang over the great cascade.

Qingyan Ancient Town

Ming-dynasty military stronghold where Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism coexist; the ancient wall and lu zhu jiao (braised pig trotters) are Qingyan's icons.

Yunshuiyao Ancient Town

Part of the UNESCO Fujian Tulou World Heritage site; Yunshuiyao ancient path and waterwheels compose a pastoral idyll.

Gongtan Ancient Town

Sheer-cliff town on the Wujiang Gallery; Tujia stilted houses tier down the slope; the flagstone old street continues a salt-trade legacy since Three Kingdoms.

Chikan Ancient Town

Lingnan arcade-building museum; overseas Chinese culture crystallized in Guan Library and European-style villas.

Luodai Ancient Town

No.1 Hakka town in western China; guildhall complexes and Hakka culture thrive here; sad cool jelly and Hakka cuisine draw visitors from afar.

Qiandeng Ancient Town

Birthplace of Kunqu opera and hometown of Gu Yanwu; Qinfeng Pagoda and the flagstone street witness 2,500 years of Wu-region heritage.

Cicheng Ancient Town

Foremost ancient county town in Jiangnan; Tang-dynasty urban layout preserved intact; filial piety culture and the Confucian Temple carry a thousand-year lineage.

Qikou Ancient Town

No.1 town on the Yellow River's nine bends; key ferry port for western Shanxi merchants; Lijiashan cave dwellings are the Potala Palace of the Loess Plateau.

Hongjiang Ancient Commercial City

One of China's best-preserved Ming-Qing commercial cities; Yinzhiwu buildings and Seven Rushes Eight Alleys recreate the tung-oil trade prosperity of western Hunan.

Yaoli Ancient Town

Source of porcelain, homeland of tea, sea of forests; the raw material origin for Jingdezhen ceramics; Ming-Qing commercial street testifies to bygone bustle.

Qiantong Ancient Town

Ming-Qing village in Jiangnan threaded by a Bagua water system; the Tong clan ancestral hall and exquisite carvings showcase eastern Zhejiang clan culture.

Nianbadu Ancient Town

Unique ancient town straddling three provinces where a hundred surnames gather; Fengling Pass and Ming-Qing buildings are living fossils of military-commercial hybrid history.

Sanhe Ancient Town

Water town where the Fengle and Hangbu rivers meet; Yang Zhenning's former residence and the Taiping army ancient wall carry deep history.

Zhangzhou Ancient City

Core region of southern Fujian culture; Tang-Song city layout coexists with Ming-Qing arcade buildings; Taiwan Road old street testifies to Fujian-Taiwan kinship.

Guandu Ancient Town

Tang-dynasty Nanzhao ferry port; Miaozhan Temple Diamond Throne Pagoda is the foremost vajra throne pagoda in central Yunnan; once the busiest trade port on Lake Dian.

Lukang Old Street

Taiwan's most historic port town; officially opened for trade during the Qing era; dense temples and southern Fujian-style old houses bear witness to its golden age as 'one government, two deer, three Monga'.

Tamsui Old Street

Port town at the mouth of the Tamsui River; Fort Santo Domingo and consulate buildings tell the story of modern Taiwan's international trade; Dr. George Mackay preached and practiced medicine here.

Anping Old Street

The earliest Han Chinese settlement in Taiwan; Sword Lion tablets and Anping Fort carry Ming-Zheng-era memories; narrow lanes and old walls are living fossils of Taiwan's pioneering history.

Huanglongxi Ancient Town

Best-preserved thousand-year-old river-wharf town in western Sichuan; ancient banyan trees and stilted houses line the Fu River; fire-dragon lantern dance and 'one-noodle' are the town's living cultural icons.

Pingle Ancient Town

Top-ranked town in western Sichuan on the Ancient Tea Horse Road; Qin-Han post roads and ancient paper-making workshops survive; ten thousand mu of bamboo sea encircles the town like a green wall.

Zhoucun Ancient Commercial City

Known as 'No.1 village under heaven' and 'dry dock'; Ming-Qing era cradle of Lu merchants and northern silk distribution center; filming location for The Dyeing House and other TV dramas.

Taierzhuang Ancient City

Grand Canal town once famous for 'merchants gathering, river full of fishing lanterns'; rebuilt after the Battle of Taierzhuang in WWII; now a world-renowned memorial ancient city.

Qingzhou Ancient City

One of the Nine Ancient Provinces; centuries-old hub between sea and Mount Tai; Ming-Qing old streets and Occasional Garden preserve the complete ancient city pattern.

Zhuxian Town

One of China's Four Great Ancient Towns; birthplace of woodblock New Year prints; site of Yue Fei's victory over the Jin army; mosque and ancient temple testify to multi-ethnic trade history.

Sheqi Ancient Town

Key transfer station on the Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road and porcelain trade hub; the Shaanxi-Shanxi Guildhall and Fire God Temple preserve exquisite commercial architecture unrivaled in central China.

Zhengding Ancient City

Ancient Buddhist stronghold in China; the cast-bronze Guanyin at Longxing Temple is the nation's largest; Linji Temple ancestral court and the Grand View Garden film set for Dream of the Red Chamber.

Shanhaiguan Ancient City

Eastern starting point of the Great Wall; 'No.1 Pass Under Heaven' commands the mountains and sea; Ming-Qing military fortress and city layout preserved intact; iconic Great Wall landmark.

Yangliuqing Ancient Town

Hometown of China's woodblock New Year prints; northern folk-custom town nourished by the Grand Canal; Shi Family Mansion and opera stage showcase Tianjin merchant refinement.

Tianshui Ancient City

Hometown of Fuxi and key town on the Silk Road; the Maijishan Grottoes are among China's Four Great Grottoes; ancient streets and Hu's Residence testify to millennia of Longshang Jiangnan heritage.

Jingzhou Ancient City

Birthplace of Chu culture and core arena of the Three Kingdoms; the best-preserved Ming-dynasty city wall in southern China; carries a thousand years of Jianghan civilization memory.

Qingmuchuan Ancient Town

Where Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan meet — a town where three provinces converge; Wei Fuxuan's mansion and Huilongchang Old Street witness Republican-era border trade prosperity under a local 'warlord'.

Beijing Central Axis

The national power axis running through the Forbidden City — from Yongding Gate south to the Bell and Drum Towers north, the perfect projection of Chinese ritual order onto the Earth's surface.

Chang'an City

Sui-Tang Chang'an — one hundred and eight wards laid out like a chessboard grid, the largest and most orderly imperial capital planning masterpiece of the ancient world.

Luoyang Ancient City

Luoyang, Center of All Under Heaven — the survey benchmark established at the Gaocheng Observatory, capital of thirteen dynasties, the orthodox capital coordinate every emperor dreamed of anchoring legitimacy to.

Kaifeng Ancient City

Northern Song Kaifeng — the waterway network bursting through ward walls, China's first open night-market and urban consumer carnival.

Ming Palace Site

The Ming Palace ruins of Nanjing — capital of six dynasties and ten kingdoms, where every time the north fell, Han regimes retreated here to continue the mantle of Chinese civilization.

Xianyang Palace Site

The Qin Xianyang Palace ruins — spanning the Wei River, mapping its separate halls onto the constellations, humanity's earliest super-stage for performing sovereignty through landscape geometry.

Weiyang Palace Site

The Han Weiyang Palace ruins — a monumental palace built atop a colossal rammed-earth platform, using extreme vertical perspective to manufacture suffocating awe before imperial authority.

Yin Xu

The ruins of Yin at Anyang — where oracle bones were unearthed, the Shang ancestral temples and bronze foundries, the dawn of Chinese written history and the pinnacle of the Bronze Age.

Sanxingdui Site

The Sanxingdui ruins — a bronze sacred tree and golden masks that stunned the world, a mysterious ancient Shu civilization center operating on a completely different ritual logic from the Yellow River basin.

Ming Tombs

The thirteen Ming imperial tombs — perfectly following the arc of the Tianshou Mountains, a grand mausoleum matrix using the natural peaks as cemetery walls, the ultimate underground political landscape.

Mausoleum of the First Emperor

The Qin Shihuang Mausoleum — eight thousand terracotta warriors arrayed underground in full battle formation, the ultimate subterranean palace seeking to replicate supreme earthly sovereignty in the underworld.

Han Yangling

The Han Yangling Mausoleum — a vast collection of miniature pottery figurines and granary models entombed, locking state assets into an underground model, the foundational work of the Chinese imperial tomb system.

Tang Qianling

The Tang Qianling Mausoleum — using a natural double-peaked karst mountain as the tumulus, Wu Zetian's blank stele standing on the spirit way, a timeless masterpiece that lets posterity judge her merits and faults.

Eastern Qing Tombs

The largest imperial tomb complex inside the Great Wall — a Manchu-Han synthesis wrapping shamanic northern wildness and Confucian ritual order into the dynasty's underground ledger.

Xanadu Site

The Yuan Upper Capital ruins — a surreal dual capital nesting the rectangular Han axial grid within the circular nomadic tent ethic on the vast grassland, the northern power gateway of the Mongol empire.

Ye City Site

The Cao-Wei Ye City ruins — the first capital to isolate the ruler's core citadel outside the grid of wards, shattering the Han chaos of mixed officials and commoners, the ancestral template for a thousand years of rigidly compartmentalized imperial city planning.

Mount Tai Fengshan Altar

The Fengshan altar at the summit of Mount Tai — where every dynastic emperor must ascend in the flesh to sacrifice to Heaven and Earth, broadcasting to the cosmos the mandate of legitimate rule.

Mogao Caves

The Dunhuang Mogao Caves — a treasure-house of Buddhist art on the Silk Road, over seven hundred grottoes preserving forty-five thousand square meters of murals, a thousand-year three-dimensional art history.

Mount Wutai

Mount Wutai, the bodhimanda of Manjusri — where Han, Tibetan, and Mongolian Buddhism converge, a vast ancient architectural complex built by successive dynasties through imperial patronage.

Mount Wudang

Mount Wudang, foremost of Daoist mountains — the Yongle Emperor dispatched hundreds of thousands to carve this proclamation of imperial legitimacy into heaven-defying cliffs, a royal faith spectacle.

Mount Qingcheng

Qingcheng, the most tranquil place under heaven — one of Daoism's birthplaces, where temples dissolve seamlessly into primeval forest, pursuing zero-impedance harmony with the natural world.

Yungang Grottoes

The Yungang Grottoes — colossal Buddha statues carved in stone by the Northern Wei Xianbei, a grand fusion of Indian, Persian, and Chinese artistry, a stone monument legitimizing nomadic rule through Buddhist authority.

Longmen Grottoes

Longmen's Fengxian Temple — the Vairocana Buddha seated serenely above the Yi River, the eternal solidification of Wu Zetian's countenance and the supreme confidence of the High Tang.

Ruins of St. Paul's

The facade of St. Paul's in Macau — begun by the Jesuits in 1602, the largest Catholic church in the Far East blending Baroque and Eastern motifs, a UNESCO World Heritage landmark and the eternal witness of East-West civilizational dialogue.

Songshan Zhongyue Temple

The Zhongyue Temple on Mount Song — situated at the very survey benchmark of the Center of Heaven and Earth, an ancient Daoist complex that formatted raw mountain worship into a state-sanctioned orthodox ritual order.

Mount Putuo

Mount Putuo, the bodhimanda of Guanyin — a sacred island Buddhist realm suspended alone in the East China Sea's waves, a spiritual lighthouse whose thousand-year Sanskrit chanting and tidal rhythm illuminate the return path for seafarers.

Mount Hua Daoist Network

The Daoist hermitage chain clinging to Mount Hua's near-vertical cliffs — recluses compressing the bandwidth of life to its limit, a network of extreme spiritual practice pursuing absolute soul sovereignty against the most hostile gravity on Earth.

Hanging Temple

The Hanging Temple on Mount Heng — a three-teachings-in-one pavilion suspended on a vertical cliff by slender wooden pillars, a structural-mechanics miracle that has hung in midair for over a thousand years without falling.

Sheshan Basilica

The Basilica of Our Lady atop Sheshan in Shanghai — begun by Jesuits in 1871, China's only papal-designated minor basilica, where thousands of pilgrims ascend each May, a devout faith tower overlooking Shanghai and the Far Eastern Marian pilgrimage center.

Mount Longhu

Mount Longhu, the ancestral seat of Zhengyi Daoism — Danxia pictographic peaks, thousand-year hanging coffins, and talismanic ritual codes converge in the South's esoteric faith center.

Three Pagodas of Dali

The Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in Dali — standing tall through dozens of violent earthquakes over a millennium, the spiritual landmark by which the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms formatted the wild southwest frontier with grand brick geometry.

Mount Jiuhua

Mount Jiuhua, the bodhimanda of Kshitigarbha — deep in its valleys, numerous temples preserve the uncorrupted bodily relics of monks, China's ultimate spiritual experiment on physical immortality and the continuity of cultivation beyond death.