CN · Curated travel guide
Great Wall of China, Mount Everest, Three Gorges Dam and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about China and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. 2 are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
Series of fortifications in northern China
A chain of fortifications in China, built along the historical northern frontiers of ancient Chinese states and of Imperial China to guard against nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe.
Photo: Severin.stalder, CC BY-SA 3.0
Earth's highest mountain
Earth's highest mountain above sea level, called Sagarmāthā in Nepali, Chamolangma in Sherpa and Jomolangma/Čhomolangma in Tibetan. It stands in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas, and its summit marks part of the border between China and Nepal.
Photo: Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2.jpg : shrimpo1967 derivative work: Papa Lima Whiskey 2 ( talk ), CC BY-SA 2.0
Dam in Yiling District, Hubei, China
Officially the Yangtze River Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project, a hydroelectric gravity dam across the Yangtze near Sandouping, in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, below the Three Gorges. It is the world's biggest power station by installed capacity (22,500 MW), producing on average 95±20 TWh a year, depending on rainfall in the river basin.
Photo: Source file : Le Grand Portage Derivative work: Rehman, CC BY 2.0
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Imperial palace complex in Beijing, China
The imperial palace complex at the centre of the Imperial City in Beijing, China. Home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was the centre of political power in China for more than 500 years, from 1420 to 1924.
Photo: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0
Desert in Xinjiang, China
A desert in northwestern China, in the Tarim Basin of southern Xinjiang, with the Gobi Desert to its east, the Tian Shan range to its north, the Pamir Mountains to its west and the Kunlun Mountains to its south.
Photo: Unknown, CC BY-SA 2.5 es
Religious mountain in Tibet Autonomous Region in China
A mountain in Ngari Prefecture, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, in the Gangdise Shan range of the Transhimalaya, on the western Tibetan Plateau.
Photo: Jean-Marie Hullot, CC BY-SA 4.0
Collection of ancient Chinese military statues
Terracotta sculptures of the armies of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor: funerary art buried with him in his mausoleum in 210–209 BCE to protect him in the afterlife.
Photo: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0
World Heritage
Mountain in Shandong, China
Shandong province's highest point, a mountain rich in history and culture that rises to the north of Tai'an, a city in China.
Photo: Charlie fong, Public domain
World Heritage
Imperial complex of religious buildings in Beijing, China
A complex of imperial Confucian religious buildings in the southeast of central Beijing. Ming emperors came here, and the Qing later restored it, for yearly ceremonies praying to Heaven for a good harvest, and for other seasonal rites.
Photo: Shujianyang, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Desert in East Asia
A large region of cold desert and grassland in North China and southern Mongolia, the sixth-largest desert in the world.
Photo: Christopher Michel from San Francisco, USA, CC BY 2.0
Officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), an East Asian country divided into 33 province-level divisions, two of them special administrative regions. Beijing is the capital, and Shanghai has the largest urban population.
Officially The People's Republic of China. Known locally as Zhōngguó 中国.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Great Wall of China, Mount Everest, Three Gorges Dam and Forbidden City and others. Mount Tai and Temple of Heaven are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in China that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
2 of the 10 in this guide: Mount Tai and Temple of Heaven. That is not the full count for China, only the listed sites that made this guide.
Mandarin Chinese. The currency is CNY.
A travel eSIM is usually the cheapest way, and avoids a roaming bill. The plans suggested at the foot of this guide start at $1.81 for 1GB for 7 days. The eSIM is data-only and sits alongside your normal SIM, so calls, texts and WhatsApp keep working on your own number.
China Unicom and China Telecom. Your phone picks whichever has the best signal where you are, the same way a local phone does.
Maps, tickets and translation all want data, and roaming is the expensive way to get it. A Computatus eSIM eSIM connects to China Unicom and China Telecom once you land, and installs by QR code before you leave.
| Plan | Data | Valid | Price | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1GB for 7 days Cheapest | 1 GB | 7 days | $1.81 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $2.15 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $2.86 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $3.11 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $3.15 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 15 days | 3 GB | 15 days | $3.40 | Get it → |
No app needed. Install by QR code before you fly, keep your own number for calls, and it connects the moment you land.
A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this guide. Nothing above depends on it: the places are chosen before any price is looked up.
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