China Travel Guide: Provinces, Visas and How to Plan a Trip

Planning a trip to China starts with two questions that have both changed recently: whether you need a visa at all, and how you are going to pay for anything. China now lets nationals of around 50 countries in for 30 days without a visa, and it runs almost entirely on mobile payments that foreign visitors can finally use. This guide covers the provinces, the entry rules, transport, food, money, safety and the etiquette that trips people up.

Yuan prices carry conversions at the rate of 11 September 2026, when €1 bought about ¥7.81 and $1 about ¥6.71.

China vacation: quick facts

The figures below are the ones to have before booking, and two of them have moved since most guides were written.

Size: 9,596,961 km² (3,705,407 sq mi), the fourth largest country in the world Population: about 1.41 billion in 2026. China is now the second most populous country, behind India, which passed it in 2023, and the population has fallen every year since 2021 Capital: Beijing Government: socialist republic under the Communist Party, with a president as head of state and a premier as head of government National day: 1 October Time zone: the whole country officially runs on Beijing time, UTC+8, with no daylight saving. In Xinjiang, in the far west, many people keep an unofficial local time two hours behind, so ask which clock a departure time refers to Currency: the renminbi, whose unit is the yuan (CNY, ¥) Electricity: 220V, 50Hz, plug types A, C and I Religion: freedom of religion is constitutionally provided; in practice only state-approved religious organisations operate freely Languages: there is no single “Chinese” language. Several hundred varieties are spoken, of which Mandarin and Cantonese are the two most widely recognised outside the country. Standard Mandarin, based on the Beijing pronunciation, is the national standard. English is taught in schools but is not widely spoken outside tourist and business settings Driving side: right International Driving Permit accepted? No. China does not recognise the IDP, and a visitor who wants to drive needs a temporary Chinese licence Phone code: +86 Vaccinations: hepatitis A and typhoid are commonly advised; nothing is compulsory for most arrivals Tap water: do not drink it

Want more of these? Our fun facts about China has a longer list of the quirky and historical ones.

Chinese provinces, regions and municipalities

China is divided into 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 direct-controlled municipalities, which are Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, and 2 special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau. Beijing also claims Taiwan as a 23rd province; Taiwan, formally the Republic of China, rejects that claim. The 22 provinces are listed below with what each is known for.

1. Anhui

Anhui is the Huangshan province, home to the granite peaks and pines of the Yellow Mountain and to the whitewashed Huizhou villages of Xidi and Hongcun, all three of them UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

2. Fujian

Fujian faces Taiwan across the strait and is known for the tulou, the round communal earth buildings of the Hakka, for the old treaty port of Xiamen and the island of Gulangyu, and for Wuyi rock tea.

3. Gansu

Gansu is the Silk Road corridor, a long narrow province running northwest between mountain ranges, with the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang and the western end of the Great Wall at Jiayuguan.

4. Guangdong

Guangdong is the manufacturing and trading heart of the Pearl River Delta, with Guangzhou and Shenzhen at its centre, and it is where Cantonese cooking and dim sum come from.

5. Guizhou

Guizhou is the karst and waterfall province, with Huangguoshu among the largest falls in Asia and a concentration of Miao and Dong villages with their own languages and architecture.

6. Hainan

Hainan is the tropical island province in the far south, with the beach resorts of Sanya, and it runs its own visa-free scheme separate from the national one.

7. Hebei

Hebei wraps around Beijing and Tianjin and holds the imperial summer retreat at Chengde and the eastern end of the Ming Great Wall where it meets the sea at Shanhaiguan.

8. Heilongjiang

Heilongjiang is the far northeast on the Russian border, with Harbin and its Russian architecture, and the ice and snow sculpture festival that runs there each January.

9. Henan

Henan is the historical core of the Chinese state, with the Shaolin Temple, the Longmen Grottoes at Luoyang and the old capitals of Luoyang and Kaifeng.

10. Hubei

Hubei sits on the middle Yangtze, with Wuhan as its capital, the Three Gorges Dam upstream and the Taoist temple complex in the Wudang Mountains.

11. Hunan

Hunan is where the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie stand, along with the riverside old town of Fenghuang, and its cooking is among the spiciest in the country.

12. Jiangsu

Jiangsu holds the classical gardens of Suzhou, the former capital at Nanjing and the southern stretch of the Grand Canal, and it is one of the wealthiest provinces.

13. Jiangxi

Jiangxi is the porcelain province, with the kilns of Jingdezhen, the mountain resort of Lushan and the yellow rape fields of the Wuyuan villages in spring.

14. Jilin

Jilin borders North Korea and Russia, and its draw is Changbai Mountain with the crater lake on the border, plus the ski resorts that have grown around it.

15. Liaoning

Liaoning was the Manchu heartland, with the Mukden Palace at Shenyang, and the port city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea.

16. Qinghai

Qinghai is high plateau, with Qinghai Lake, the largest in China, and the headwaters of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers all inside its boundary.

17. Shaanxi

Shaanxi is where most trips go for the Terracotta Army, outside Xi’an, which was the eastern end of the Silk Road and the capital of thirteen dynasties.

18. Shandong

Shandong has Mount Tai, the most climbed of the five sacred Taoist mountains, Confucius’s home town of Qufu, and Qingdao with its German brewing legacy.

19. Shanxi

Shanxi holds the walled Ming city of Pingyao, the Buddhist cave carvings at Yungang near Datong, and the Hanging Temple built into a cliff face.

20. Sichuan

Sichuan is the panda province, with the breeding bases around Chengdu, the giant carved Buddha at Leshan, the lakes of Jiuzhaigou and the numbing pepper that defines its cooking.

21. Yunnan

Yunnan is the most ethnically varied province, with the old towns of Lijiang and Dali, the rice terraces at Yuanyang, and a landscape that runs from tropical forest to Himalayan foothill.

22. Zhejiang

Zhejiang has West Lake at Hangzhou, the canal town of Wuzhen, the Buddhist island of Putuoshan and the Longjing tea terraces outside the city.

How to travel to China

China entry requirements

Whether you need a visa depends on your passport, and the answer changed for a lot of people between 2023 and 2026. China opened a unilateral visa-free channel that by February 2026 covered around 50 nationalities for stays of up to 30 days, including most of western Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and much of southeast Asia and the Gulf. The scheme is currently extended to the end of December 2026, which is the date to re-check before you book.

United States passport holders are not on that list and still need a tourist L visa for an ordinary holiday. Three exemptions may still apply: the 240-hour visa-free transit at a long list of ports of entry if you are travelling on to a third country, the Hainan island scheme through a registered tour operator, and a 15-day exemption for cruise passengers.

Whatever route applies, your passport needs at least six months of validity. If you do apply for a visa, expect to supply a dated itinerary with your flights and accommodation. Single-entry visas usually run three months, double-entry six, and multiple-entry up to 24.

How to go to China

By plane. Flying is how nearly everyone arrives, and China has more than 200 airports. The main international gateways are Beijing Capital and Beijing Daxing, which opened in 2019 and split the capital’s traffic; Shanghai Pudong; Guangzhou Baiyun; and Chengdu Tianfu. Compare flight options and prices to China across those gateways before fixing a route.

By land. China shares land borders with 14 countries, the joint record with Russia, and buses cross from Pakistan, Nepal, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar among others. None of these is quick, and several open and close with the political weather, so check the specific crossing before relying on it.

By train. Rail crossings run from Vietnam, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia, and the Trans-Mongolian route from Moscow to Beijing takes around six days. International rail services in this region have been suspended and restored repeatedly in recent years, so confirm the service is running rather than assuming.

By sea. Ferries link China with South Korea, with regular sailings from Incheon to several Chinese ports, and services to and from Japan have been much less reliable. Treat sea routes as something to confirm shortly before travel.

How to travel around China

High-speed rail is the right default for getting around China, and the network is the largest in the world. The first bullet trains ran in 2007 and the system now connects almost every major city, with journeys that beat flying once you count airport time. You will need your passport to buy a ticket and again to board, and the same passport has to be the one used for the booking. Trip.com sells Chinese rail tickets in English, which solves the main obstacle for a visitor.

Domestic flights cover the distances rail does not, and buses reach the places neither does. Bus travel needs extra time, because a Chinese city often has several long-distance bus stations and working out which one your service leaves from is the hard part.

One restriction to plan around: Tibet cannot be visited independently by foreign nationals. You need a Tibet Travel Permit on top of your Chinese visa, and the permit is issued through a registered tour operator with a guide and a fixed itinerary.

What to pack for China

Pack for the region rather than for the country, because China spans five temperature zones and the difference between them in the same month is enormous. The general pattern is a continental monsoon climate with cold winters and hot summers, and that describes very little of what you will actually experience.

The South China Sea coast is hot most of the year. The Qinghai-Tibet plateau is cold most of it. Southern Yunnan has spring-like weather year-round, northern Inner Mongolia has long winters, and southern Fujian has long summers. Look up the forecast for your specific destination before you pack, and if your route crosses zones, layers are the only answer.

When to visit China

Spring, from April to May, and autumn, from September to October, are the comfortable months across most of the country, and they are the right answer for a first trip. Temperatures are warm without being oppressive and the rain has not arrived.

Summer is hot and wet across most of China, and it is the season that works for the high country: Tibet, Yunnan and the Guilin karst. Winter suits Harbin, for the ice festival in January, and the northeastern ski resorts. Whatever month you choose, avoid the two national holiday weeks, Chinese New Year and the first week of October, when the entire country travels at once and transport and accommodation both sell out.

What to eat in China

Chinese cooking is regional rather than national, so the list below is the set of dishes you will find far outside their home province. The 10 dishes are listed below.

1. Dumplings: jiaozi, steamed, boiled or pan-fried, and the northern staple.
2. Kung pao chicken: diced chicken with peanuts, dried chillies and a slightly sweet sauce, from Sichuan.
3. Jianbing: a savoury crêpe made on a griddle with egg, spring onion, chilli sauce and a crisp cracker folded inside, sold from carts at breakfast.
4. Peking duck: roasted duck carved at the table and eaten in thin pancakes with spring onion and sweet bean sauce.
5. Mapo tofu: tofu in a chilli and fermented bean sauce with minced meat and Sichuan pepper.
6. Bang bang chicken: shredded poached chicken in a sesame and chilli dressing, a Sichuan cold dish.
7. Baozi: steamed buns filled with pork, vegetables or red bean.
8. Dim sum: the Cantonese tea-house tradition of small steamed and fried dishes, eaten from mid-morning.
9. Tanghulu: hawthorn berries on a stick in a hard sugar shell, sold by street vendors in winter.
10. Hot pot: a simmering pot in the middle of the table into which you cook your own meat, vegetables and noodles, and the most social meal in the country.

Festivals and events in China

Almost every Chinese festival follows the lunar calendar, so the dates move by several weeks each year. The 10 below are the ones worth planning around.

• Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, late January or February, nationwide and the largest annual human migration on earth.
• Lantern Festival, fifteen days after New Year, closing the holiday.
• Qingming, the tomb-sweeping festival, early April.
• Dragon Boat Festival, fifth day of the fifth lunar month, with races wherever there is water.
• Mid-Autumn Festival, fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, with mooncakes.
• Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, January and February, Heilongjiang.
• Shoton Festival, Lhasa, with the unveiling of a giant thangka.
• Qingdao International Beer Festival, August, Shandong.
• Hungry Ghost Festival, seventh lunar month.
• Sisters’ Meal Festival, a Miao festival in Guizhou in the third lunar month.

Public holidays in China

China has seven statutory public holidays, and the exact dates are announced by the General Office of the State Council a few weeks before the start of each year. When a holiday falls at a weekend, the days off are usually shifted and working weekends are added either side to make longer blocks, which is why the calendar looks strange to a visitor.

• New Year’s Day, 1 January
• Spring Festival, the first days of the first lunar month
• Qingming, the tomb-sweeping festival, at the fifth solar term
• Labour Day, 1 May
• Dragon Boat Festival, fifth day of the fifth lunar month
• Mid-Autumn Festival, fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month
• National Day, 1 to 3 October

Cultural customs to be aware of in China

A few habits will keep you from causing offence, and most of them are about hands and chopsticks. Never stand chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice: it looks like incense at a funeral and reads as a bad omen. Rest them across the bowl or on the rest provided when you finish.

Do not point at people with a finger; gesture with an open hand instead. Personal space is smaller than in western Europe or North America, and being jostled in a queue is not aggression. Public spitting is common and is not directed at you, though it is less common than it was and is discouraged in the big cities. And do not be surprised if someone photographs you or asks for a picture, particularly away from the tourist cities.

To go deeper, our list of books about China is written by someone who moved there.

Where to stay in China

Chinese accommodation splits between international chains, domestic chains and small guesthouses, and the practical constraint is that not every property is licensed to take foreign guests, particularly outside the big cities. Filtering by a platform that shows only properties accepting foreign passports saves an unpleasant conversation at a front desk at midnight. Search hotels and guesthouses across China with that in mind, and for whole apartments rather than rooms, Vrbo is the alternative we check.

Travel insurance for China

Travel insurance matters in China because the language barrier turns a small problem into a large one. A cancelled connection, a stomach illness that needs a clinic, a broken camera: all of those are harder to resolve when you cannot read the paperwork, and international clinics in Chinese cities expect payment up front.

SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance is what we use, because it can be bought after a trip has started and runs as a subscription rather than a fixed-date policy. Whatever you buy, check what it says about medical evacuation, which is the expensive part in a country this large.

Is China safe to travel to?

China is a safe country for visitors by the measures that usually matter, with low rates of violent crime against tourists and visible, heavily resourced policing. The risks are of a different kind.

Pickpocketing happens in crowds, on public transport and at markets in the big cities, so keep bags in front of you at peak hours. Traffic is the largest physical danger: enforcement is inconsistent, right turns on red are legal, electric scooters are silent and fast, and a green pedestrian light does not mean the crossing is empty. Scams aimed at tourists are concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai, and the two classic ones are the tea-house invitation and the art-student gallery visit, both of which end with a bill.

Food safety is a common worry and street food is not the problem people assume; pick a stall with a queue where the food is cooked in front of you. China also sits in an active seismic zone and has serious flood and typhoon seasons, so check weather warnings before travelling in summer.

Money in China: cards, cash and mobile payments

China runs on QR-code mobile payments, and the important change for visitors is that foreigners can now use them. Alipay and WeChat Pay both accept international Visa, Mastercard and several other card networks linked directly in the app after a one-time passport verification, with no Chinese bank account required, and both waived or reduced small-transaction fees for overseas users. This is the single biggest practical change in China travel in the last few years, and any guide that tells you to carry a thick stack of notes is out of date.

Set both apps up and verify them before you fly, because the verification can take a day. Carry some cash as a fallback, because a minority of small vendors and rural buses still want it and merchants are legally required to accept it. Foreign credit cards work in international hotels, larger restaurants and tourist-facing shops, and not much else. ATMs in major cities accept foreign cards; outside them, fewer do.

Staying connected in China

The Chinese internet blocks most of the services you use daily, including Google, Gmail, Google Maps, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and most western news sites. Planning around that is part of preparing for the trip.

The simplest workaround for a visitor is an international eSIM that routes your data outside the mainland network, so your usual apps keep working without a VPN. We use Airalo eSIMs for this, and their China plans are built for exactly this problem. Use code HARRY5578 for a discount on your first eSIM. Note that an eSIM covers one phone, so several people sharing one connection is a different product.

If you would rather use a VPN, install and test it before you arrive, because the app stores that carry them are blocked once you land, and be aware that individual VPN services are blocked and unblocked without notice. Hotel wifi in tourist cities is common and slow, and it sits behind the same firewall.

Tipping in China

Tipping is not expected in mainland China and is refused in some places, so do not build it into your budget. Restaurant bills do not carry a service line and staff are not tipped out of wages the way they are in the United States. The exceptions are tour guides and drivers working with foreign groups, who do expect something, and Hong Kong and Macau, where tipping is normal. Our guidelines for tipping in China give the amounts by situation.

A brief history of China

Chinese recorded history runs continuously for more than three thousand years, which is why so much of the country’s present is explained by reference to its past. The Xia is the first dynasty named in the traditional record; the Shang, from about 1600 BC, is the first with substantial archaeological evidence, including the bronzes and the inscribed oracle bones.

The Zhou overthrew the Shang, and Confucius was born during the long Zhou period. Qin Shi Huang unified the warring states in 221 BC, took the title of first emperor, and began linking the northern walls into what became the Great Wall; his tomb outside Xi’an is guarded by the Terracotta Army. Buddhism arrived, paper and gunpowder were invented and woodblock printing produced the first printed books over the following centuries.

Genghis Khan unified the Mongol tribes in 1206, and his grandson Kublai Khan made Dadu, now Beijing, the capital of the Yuan, the first foreign-led dynasty. The Ming overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and rebuilt the Great Wall in the form most visitors see. The Qing, the last imperial dynasty, ruled from 1644 to 1912.

The 1911 revolution ended imperial rule, and the Republic that followed never controlled the whole country, which led to decades of civil war interrupted by the war with Japan. The Communists won in 1949 and founded the People’s Republic. The Great Leap Forward famine of 1958 to 1962 killed tens of millions. The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 and ended in 2016, replaced first by a two-child limit and then, in 2021, by a three-child one, and the birth rate has continued to fall regardless. China is now the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.

Posts about China

Everything we have written about China is collected in one place. See all posts about China.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below are the things worth sorting before you leave home, and each one is far easier to do at your desk than in Beijing.

1. Check the visa-free list before you pay for a visa. Around 50 nationalities now enter for 30 days without one, and the scheme currently runs to the end of December 2026. United States passports are not on it.
2. Set up Alipay and WeChat Pay with your own card before you fly. Both now take international cards after a passport check, verification can take a day, and almost nothing in China is paid for any other way.
3. Sort your data before you land. The app stores that carry VPNs are blocked inside China, so an eSIM installed at home is the version of this that works.
4. Book your train with the passport you will travel on. Chinese rail ties the ticket to the document, and a mismatch stops you at the gate.
5. Do not try to reach Tibet on your own. A Tibet Travel Permit, a registered operator and a guide are all required on top of your Chinese visa.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers China and Hong Kong for independent travellers, including the tours, trains, hotels and eSIMs worth booking across the 22 provinces, and updates this page when visas, payment rules and prices change.