City Snapshots

City overview, Changchun
City Overview:
Changchun (Chinese: 长春) is the capital and largest city of Jilin province, located in the northeast of the People’s Republic of China, in the centre of the Songliao Plain. It is a sub-provincial city. The name originated from the Jurchen language. Changchun is situated at Northeast Asia’s geometric center. South Liaodong peninsula [...]

The February 7 Tower, Zhengzhou
City Overview:
Zhengzhou (Chinese: 郑州), formerly called Zhengxian is a prefecture-level city, and the capital of Henan province, China. Zhengzhou is situated to the south of the Yellow River where its valley broadens into the great plain and at the eastern extremity of the Xionger Mountains. Zhengzhou is at the crossing point [...]

City Overview, Shenzhen
City Overview:
Shenzhen (Chinese: 深圳) is a city of sub-provincial administrative status in southern China’s Guangdong province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. Owing to China’s economic liberalization under the policies of reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, the area became China’s first—and ultimately most successful—Special Economic Zone.
Shenzhen’s novel and modern cityscape is the result of [...]

St. Sophia Church, Harbin
Harbin is originally a Manchu word meaning “a place for drying fishing nets”, the city also bears the nicknames “The Pearl on the swan’s neck” because the shape of Heilongjiang Province resembles a swan; and “Oriental Moscow” or “Oriental Paris” for the architecture in the city. It is also known as “Ice [...]

Bell Tower, Xi’an
The two Chinese characters in the name “Xi’an (Chinese: 西安)” literally mean Western Peace. This name derives from the Ming Dynasty, when the city’s name changed from its former title of “Chang’an (Chinese: 长安)”.

Tian Ta, Tianjin

City Overview:
Tianjin (Chinese: 天津) is the third largest city of China in terms of urban population. Administratively it is one of the four municipalities that have provincial-level status, reporting directly to the central government. Also, its urban land area is the third largest in China, ranked only after Beijing and Shanghai.

The Bund, Shanghai
The two Chinese characters in the name “Shanghai”, (上, shang; and 海, hai) literally mean “up, on, or above” and “sea”, respectively, evident of Shanghai’s location next to the East China Sea. The earliest occurrence of this name dates from the Song Dynasty (11th century), at which time there was already a river [...]

Spring City Square, Ji’nan
The modern-day name “Ji’nan (Chinese: 济南)” literally means “south of the Ji (Waters)” and refers to the old Ji River that once flowed to the north of the city. The Ji River disappeared in 1852, when the Yellow River changed its course northwards and took over the bed of the Ji River. [...]

Tianhe, Guangzhou

City Overview:
Guangzhou (Chinese: 广州) is the capital and a sub-provincial city of Guangdong Province in the southern part of the People’s Republic of China. The city is also known by an alternative English name, Canton. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea, and is located about 120 [...]

People’s Liberation Monument, Chongqing

City Overview:
Chongqing (Chinese: 重庆) is the largest and most populous of China’s four provincial-level municipalities, and the only one in the less densely populated western region of China. The boundaries of Chongqing municipality reach much further into the city’s hinterland than the boundaries of the other three provincial level municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai [...]