Little-Known Places in China to Visit

This is a searing hot desert oasis, and it’s not in Middle-east. This is in China.

Situated in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang  province, northwestern China, Turpan is home to Uighurs as well as several other minority groups. It boasts of beautiful old architecture, especially the Emin Minaret. Spices, raisins, nuts, handmade knives, and gorgeous fabric will be on your shopping list when you wander through old-styled market.

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No, that’s not Russia, that’s a Chinese town 🙂

(People are skiing with chairs! hahaha! Worth to try! I played it once, amazing!)

This is Harbin, capital and largest city of Heilongjiang province, a Northeastern city near Russian border. Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation. Harbin, which was originally a Manchu word meaning “a place for drying fishing nets”, grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of the immigrants from the Russian Empire.

Having the most bitterly cold winters among major Chinese cities, Harbin is heralded as the Ice City for its well-known winter tourism and recreations. Harbin is notable for the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in the winter. The most famous Ice and Snow World features illuminated full-size buildings made from blocks of 2–3 feet thick crystal clear ice directly taken from the Songhua River which passes through the city.

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Bamiyan Budhhas are gone but These live on in China.

The Longmen Grottoes or Longmen Caves are one of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Buddha and his disciples, they are located 7.5 miles south of present-day Luòyáng in Hénán province, China. There are as many as 100,000 statues within the 2,345 caves, ranging from an 1 inch to 57 feet in height. The alternative name of “Dragon’s Gate Grottoes” derives from the resemblance of the two hills that check the flow of the Yi River to the typical “Chinese gate towers” that once marked the entrance to Luoyang from the south.

The earliest history of the creation of Longmen Grottoes is traced to the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei dynasty. Luoyang’s symbolic value is borne by the fact that it served as the historic capital for 13 dynasties. The grottoes were excavated and carved with Buddhist subjects over the period from 493 AD to 1127 AD, in four distinct phases.

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A town which has been producing pottery for 1,700 years!

Jingdezhen (or the Town of Jingde) is a prefecture-level city, previously a town, in northeastern Jiangxi province. It has been producing pottery for 1,700 years. During the Han Dynasty, Jingdezhen was known as Xinping. Historical records show that it was during this time that it began to make porcelain. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was considered one of China’s four great towns in terms of commercial and industrial importance. Jingdezhen was named one of top 24 national historical and cultural cities of the People’s Republic of China on February 28, 1982.