China's 34 Provinces - 24 visited (Sept 10 update)

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China is the oldest continuous civilisation in the world with a 5000 year old history and the 4th largest country after Russia, Canada and USA. With such a long history and vast area, there is plenty that China can offer to travellers in terms of history, culture and natural.

This entry is a summary of our travels to China's provinces. There are a total of 34 provinces and we plan to visit all. Tibet will be the most challenging because of the high altitude. In our travel, our favourites are places from the UNESCO World Heritage sites and Most Beautiful Places in China list. See the related blog entries about the 2 list:-


See from blog page

or

1) UNESCO World Heritage Site in China


2) China' Most Beautiful Places



China is a very big country and very diverse in terms of culture, natural landscape and language. Travelling beyond the first tier cities (Beijing / Shanghai / Shenzhen) allows you to see the real China. So, visiting all the provinces serve as a guide to travelling and understanding China. We alway plan the travel ourselves instead of joining tour groups so that you don't spent your time only in the hotel, tourist attractions and shopping and you can visit so places where the tour groups dont go to.

It's a very interesting country. You travel to see and feel the diversity. You can have seafood in the costal areas, tim sum in the south, spicy food in the central /west and dumplings in the north.

The 34 province level administrative divisions consisting of 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities and 2 Special Administrative Regions. Each has its own ethnic groups, scenic places and historic sites. You can read about all these places but there will always be the small little details that suprises you so the tour guides are very important people to give you bits of additional information that leaves you with a deeper impression of the places.

We will post the entries for each trips seperately.

Enjoy the photos!!!

Update 1:

Jangxi and Anhui are Province No 20 and 21 respectively as they are the region we are traveling around this Dec 09/Jan 10.

Very nice natural landscape with 4 World heritage sites and 4 Beautiful Places.

Update 2:
We toured China's Northeast - Heilongjiang and Jilin Province.

Update 3:
We are touring Central China. First province is Hubei with plenty of historical sites. With this visit, we are now to the last 10 provinces to visit!

Note: The contents (text and photos) of this article remain the copyright of the Author, Jenny. Under no circumstances should the photos or text be used without the express written permission of the Author. Please contact the Author by leaving a message if you wish to use or publish photos or text from this article.

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Photos

Beijing Municipality
China's capital and also the place where New China was declared on 1 Oct 1949

Shanghai Municipality
The finanical capital of China

Hebei Province
Birth place of China's national bank and currency, Renminbi.

Tianjin Municipality
The northern end of the Grand Canal

Fujian Province
Starting point of sea silkroad and Admiral Zheng He's staging area for his naval sailing in the 1400s.

Shanxi Province
Old finanical capital of China

Liaoning Province
The base of the Manchus before their invasion of China in 1644.

Henan Province
One of the site where Chinese civilisation develops and ancient capital for several dynasties.

Sichuan Province
Home of the Panda Bears

Jiangsu Province
Low land with many water villages in the province with Suzhou being called Venice of the East.

Shaanxi
This is one of the sites where Chinese civilisation develops. Its also where the silk road starts at Xian.

Shangdong Province
Birth place of Confucius whose teaching has greatly influenced asia's culture

Chongqing Municipality
Home of the Hot pot

Zhejiang Province
Land of Fish and Rice. Its also the Southern terminal of the Grand Canel used to transport food to the North in the past.

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
China's smallest province with land irrigated by the Yellow River

Guangdong Province
China's window to the world since the 16th century and one of the ancestral home of large number of overseas chinese.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
The Oriental Pearl and haven for shopping and food.

Macao Special Administrative Region
The place where East and West met for the last 400 years

Jiangxi Province
Birth place of the PLA and China's historical porcelain production centre

Anhui Province
Home of the merchant groups who had played a key role in the economy for more than 600 years from 1279 - 1911.

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Land of Genghis Khan

Heilongjiang Province
China's most Northeastern province that borders Russia and North Korea

Jilin Province
China's old industrial base

Hubei Province
The Changjiang River or Yangtze flows through the province helping to give a rich history. Now,its has given the province the famous world largest electricity plant - The Three Groges Dam.