China at a glance

What you need to know

Five facts explain a lot about traveling in China (中国):

• China is extremely large.
• The whole country uses one official time zone.
• Food, climate, language and landscapes vary greatly by region.
• Beijing (北京), Shanghai (上海), Tianjin (天津) and Chongqing (重庆) are provincial-level municipalities.
• Hong Kong (香港) and Macao (澳门) have separate immigration, currency and legal systems from mainland China.

Quick facts

China is continent-sized

China covers roughly 9.6 million km².

The practical consequence matters more than the number: a trip involving Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xinjiang is not comparable to visiting four neighboring European cities.

One official time zone

All of mainland China uses:

China Standard Time (中国标准时间), UTC+8

often called Beijing Time (北京时间).

In far western China, sunrise and sunset can feel unusually late relative to the official clock.

Provincial-level regions

For travel planning, the important distinction is that China contains:

• provinces;
• autonomous regions;
• provincial-level municipalities;
• special administrative regions.

Hong Kong and Macao have separate border, currency and legal systems, so crossing between either SAR and mainland China involves border formalities rather than an ordinary domestic journey.

RMB, yuan and ¥

Renminbi (人民币) — the currency
Yuan (元) — the main unit
RMB — common international abbreviation
¥ — price symbol

The key takeaway

Instead of asking:

What is China like?

ask:

What is this part of China like?

Beijing, Guangzhou (广州), Lhasa (拉萨), Harbin (哈尔滨) and Sanya (三亚) can feel like entirely different trips.