Eight ways to read the country

China is too large to see and too varied to summarise. Pick a thread and follow it.

China ties Italy for the most World Heritage sites on earth — 59 and counting.

Four thousand years of dynasties, and the cities they left behind.

The limestone towers and misted water that invented Chinese landscape painting.

Nine peaks that pilgrims have climbed by stone staircase for two thousand years.

Desert forts, painted caves and oasis bazaars along the Hexi Corridor.

Skylines, bullet trains, night markets and the loudest urbanism on earth.

Fifty-five recognised minority peoples, most of them in the southwest.

Ice cathedrals, rime forests and the ski resorts built for the 2022 Games.