Kina

Chengdu (成都, Chéngdū) is no great draw when it comes to major tourist sites, yet this is one of the few super-sized Chinese cities that most visitors do end up enjoying. There's a relaxing teahouse culture – favorite local institutions have been serving the same brews for generations; a lively nightlife that mixes craft beer bars and super-hip clubs with Sichuan opera shows; and delicious food that is famous for its heat, history and variety even in cuisine-rich China, and is very much a point of pride: Chengdu is, after all, Unesco's first-ever City of Gastronomy. Oh, and as if that's not enough, this is the place to come to see China's cutest residents – the giant pandas.

Big, bold and beautifully barren, Qinghai (青海, Qīnghǎi), larger than any country in the EU, occupies a vast swath of the northeastern chunk of the Tibetan Plateau. As far as Tibetans are concerned, this is Amdo, one of old Tibet’s three traditional provinces. Much of what you’ll experience here will feel more Tibetan than Chinese; there are monasteries galore, yaks scattered across the hills by the thousands and nomads camped out across high-altitude grasslands.

The underrated province of Jiāngxī (江西) offers a bucolic entrée into semirural Chinese life. It's a succulent, green place, connected by waterways of natural and human design, rice paddies teeming with bird life and fields draped in wildflowers. Tea seemingly grows out of every patch of land until dramatic mountain ranges, swirling with mist, rise up at its edges.

Det är dags att åka till Hongkong innan staden helt och hållet uppslukas av fastlands-Kina. Men var finns metropolens själ? Vi söker bland häxor, hästar, spansk gin och pirater.

The original city core and the sole part of Shanghai to pre-date the 1850s, the Old City (上海老城厢; Shànghăi Lăo Chéngxiāng) is a favourite with visitors hoping to glimpse ‘traditional’ China. Many of the older buildings have been replaced with modern apartment blocks, but there are still more temples here than in the rest of the city combined, and pockets are impregnated with atmosphere and shabby charm.

Situated on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, this lively and hugely diverse provincial capital makes a good base from which to dive into the surrounding sights and on to the more remote regions of Qinghai and beyond. Though many travellers use Xining (西宁, Xīníng) as a jumping-off or landing point from the Qinghai–Tibet Railway, it’s also a wonderful place to encounter the province’s varied cultures – Muslim (Hui, Salar and Uyghur), Tibetan and Han Chinese – especially the rich culinary mix that these groups bring together. There's superb food and a scattering of tempting cafes as well as an outstanding museum of Tibetan culture, some beautiful temples and mosques, plus the remains of the old city wall, so try not to race through without putting aside some time to explore.

The most important city in western China and the economic engine of the upper Yangzi, Chongqing City (重庆; Chóngqìng) is a massive and enthralling urban sprawl. Chongqing makes up for a lack of top-notch sights with fantastic food and charismatic geography: its combination of steep hills at the confluence of the Yangzi and Jialing Rivers is a prelude to the even more dramatic scenery of the Three Gorges downstream.

The centre of the Tibetan Buddhist world for over a millennium, Lhasa (ལྷ་ས་; 拉萨; Lāsà; literally the 'Place of the Gods') remains largely a city of wonders. Your first view of the red-and-white Potala Palace soaring above the Holy City raises goosebumps and the charming whitewashed old Tibetan quarter continues to preserve the essence of traditional Tibetan life. It is here in the Jokhang, an otherworldly mix of flickering butter lamps, wafting incense and prostrating pilgrims, and the encircling Barkhor pilgrim circuit, that most visitors first fall in love with Tibet.

Synonymous with the Silk Road, the slender province of Gansu (甘肃, Gānsù) flows east to west along the Hexi Corridor, the gap through which goods and ideas once streamed between China and Central Asia. The constant flow of commerce left Buddhist statues, beacon towers, forts, chunks of the Great Wall and ancient trading towns in its wake. Gansu offers an entrancingly rich cultural and geographic diversity. Historians immerse themselves in Silk Road lore, art aficionados swoon before the wealth of Buddhist paintings and sculptures, while adventurers hike through desert rockland, ascend sand dunes and tread along high-mountain paths well worn by Tibetan nomads. The ethnic diversity is equally astonishing: throughout the province, the local Hui Muslims act as though the Silk Road lives on; in Xiahe and Langmusi a pronounced Tibetan disposition holds sway, while other minority groups such as the Bao’an and Dongxiang join in the colourful minority patchwork.

An off-limits border area for more than 60 years, Sha Tau Kok Village (沙頭角), which lies 11km northeast of Fanling, was sealed off from the rest of Hong Kong in 1951 following the communist takeover of China. While access to the border town itself is still restricted to local residents, the 400 hectares of land – and the patchwork of villages that it contains – to the west and southwest have been partially open since 2012.