Life in Mainland China
Name your province
China's mainland provinces, regions and cities on one map, with their capitals and what each is famous for. Pick a quiz mode and tap the map.
Pick a mode to start a round of ten.
Find it names a place; Famous for gives a clue, like "the numbing heat of mala"; Capitals names a city; Dishes shows a plate. Every place you get right stamps your passport.
Provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities
A province is the main unit, run by a provincial government from its capital city. There are 22 on the mainland, from Heilongjiang on the Russian border to Hainan, the tropical island in the south. Five autonomous regions have the same rank and are home to large minority populations: the Mongols of Inner Mongolia, the Zhuang of Guangxi, the Tibetans, the Hui of Ningxia and the Uyghurs and other peoples of Xinjiang. Four municipalities are cities run directly by the central government: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, which takes in a rural area about the size of Austria.
One character for each place
Every division also has a one-character short name. It is the first character on every car's licence plate, it appears in the names of railways and motorways, and it is often older than the province itself: several come from kingdoms of the first millennium BC. Sichuan's is the character for a river; Hunan's is the name of the Xiang River; Henan's is the name of an ancient region.
| Place | Kind | Capital | Its dish | Also known for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beijing | municipality | Beijing | Peking roast duck | The Forbidden City, the palace of the Ming and Qing emperors |
| Tianjin | municipality | Tianjin | Jianbing | Goubuli steamed buns, with their eighteen pleats on top |
| Hebei | province | Shijiazhuang | Donkey meat flatbread | Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall runs down to the sea |
| Shanxi | province | Taiyuan | Knife-cut noodles | Wutai Shan, one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism |
| Inner Mongolia | autonomous region | Hohhot | Salty milk tea | Grasslands where herders still move with their flocks |
| Liaoning | province | Shenyang | Dumplings | The Shenyang Imperial Palace, built by the Qing before they took Beijing |
| Jilin | province | Changchun | Yanbian cold noodles | Changbai Mountain and the crater lake on its summit |
| Heilongjiang | province | Harbin | Guobaorou | The Harbin Ice and Snow World, a city of buildings carved from river ice |
| Shanghai | municipality | Shanghai | Soup dumplings | The Bund, a waterfront of 1920s banks facing the towers of Pudong |
| Jiangsu | province | Nanjing | Squirrel-shaped mandarin fish | The classical gardens of Suzhou |
| Zhejiang | province | Hangzhou | Dongpo pork | West Lake in Hangzhou |
| Anhui | province | Hefei | Fermented mandarin fish | Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain, famous for pines on granite above a sea of cloud |
| Fujian | province | Fuzhou | Buddha Jumps Over the Wall | Tulou: round earthen houses of the Hakka, some housing hundreds of people |
| Jiangxi | province | Nanchang | Nanchang mixed rice noodles | Home cooking hot with fresh chillies |
| Shandong | province | Jinan | Sweet and sour Yellow River carp | Qufu, the hometown of Confucius |
| Henan | province | Zhengzhou | Henan braised noodles | The Shaolin Temple on Mount Song, birthplace of Shaolin kung fu |
| Hubei | province | Wuhan | Hot dry noodles | The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze |
| Hunan | province | Changsha | Fish head with chopped chillies | Fish head steamed under a blanket of chopped red chillies |
| Guangdong | province | Guangzhou | Dim sum | Char siu: barbecued pork with a sticky, red-edged glaze |
| Guangxi | autonomous region | Nanning | Luosifen | The karst peaks along the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo |
| Hainan | province | Haikou | Wenchang chicken | Coconuts, fresh from the tree |
| Chongqing | municipality | Chongqing | Chongqing hotpot | Xiaomian, the spicy breakfast noodles |
| Sichuan | province | Chengdu | Mapo tofu | Giant pandas, bred and studied in Chengdu |
| Guizhou | province | Guiyang | Sour soup fish | Huangguoshu, one of Asia's largest waterfalls |
| Yunnan | province | Kunming | Crossing-the-bridge rice noodles | Pu'er tea, pressed into cakes and aged |
| Tibet | autonomous region | Lhasa | Butter tea | The Potala Palace in Lhasa |
| Shaanxi | province | Xi'an | Roujiamo | The Terracotta Army of the first emperor |
| Gansu | province | Lanzhou | Lanzhou beef noodles | The Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, painted over a thousand years |
| Qinghai | province | Xining | Qinghai yoghurt | The sources of the Yangtze, the Yellow River and the Mekong |
| Ningxia | autonomous region | Yinchuan | Hand-held mutton | Hand-held mutton, boiled and eaten off the bone |
| Xinjiang | autonomous region | Urumqi | Lamb skewers | Big plate chicken, a stew of chicken, potato and peppers over wide noodles |