Shaanxi

Essential regional cuisine of China

Everyone has their own idea of Chinese cuisine, whether it’s informed by adventurous cookbook readings or late night trips to local take-out restaurants. You can get a taste of China’s long history through the cuisine of each region, whose leaping Buddhas, lion heads and lychee pork brims brim with stories from the Silk Road, Portuguese traders and wayward monks. The culinary discoveries to be had across China are nearly endless, but this list of notable noms should give any hungry traveller a great head start.

Dim sum at Tim Ho Wan. Photo by Chika Watanabe / CC BY 2.0

Travelling in China with your family: what to know and where to go

China may not spring immediately to mind when choosing a destination for a family trip, but the Middle Kingdom is full of places that suit families with children of all ages.

Many visitors underestimate how generally safe and easy it is to travel with a family in China. Most destinations are linked by direct flights, and trains and buses have reliable timetables, meaning getting from A to B with your menagerie might not be as stressful as you think.

The cave dwellers of 21st-century China

China's high-tech building industry may have been flexing its ample construction muscles for the past decade in places like Beijing and Shanghai, but a few hundred miles away in Shanxi province, an estimated three million people still live in caves.