Ancient China for travellers who actually read the wall labels

The first true imperial capital, located across the Wei River from modern Xi'an. Qin Shi Huang built his palace complex and the surrounding administrative city here between 221 and 210 BCE. Most of the Qin city is buried under the alluvial plain north of Xi'an, but the museum complex and the relocated stone columns at the Xianyang Museum present the period clearly.

The proximity to the Lintong mausoleum (Terracotta Warriors) means you can cover Xianyang and the warriors in the same morning if you start early.

Chang'an, on the site of modern Xi'an, was the largest planned city in the world during the Tang dynasty — a 9.7 by 8.6 kilometre grid, 84 square kilometres of regulated wards, holding perhaps a million residents at peak. Foreign populations of Persians, Sogdians, Japanese, and Arabian merchants made it the cosmopolitan capital of Eurasia.

The modern Xi'an City Wall (1370 Ming construction) sits inside one ninth of the original Tang footprint. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda still stands where the Tang scholar Xuanzang installed the Buddhist sutras he brought from India. The Tang West Market site preserves portions of the original commercial district.

Capital of the Eastern Han, the Cao Wei kingdom, the Western Jin, the Northern Wei, the Sui, and (briefly) the Tang. Few cities in world history have served as imperial capital across this many dynasties. The result is a deep archaeological layer that is only partially excavated.

The Longmen Grottoes south of the modern city — 2,300 niches and 100,000 Buddhist statues carved between 493 and 1127 — are the most important site, along with the White Horse Temple (founded 68 CE, the first Buddhist temple in China). The modern museum is excellent on Eastern Han bronze and the Northern Wei period.

The first Ming capital before the Yongle Emperor moved the court north to Beijing in 1421. Nanjing retains 25 kilometres of intact Ming city wall — the longest surviving ancient city wall in the world — and the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (tomb of the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang) at the foot of Purple Mountain. The combination of the wall, the tomb, and the surviving Confucius Temple district gives Nanjing a coherent Ming character that Beijing's Qing overlay makes harder to read.

Less crowded than Beijing or Xi'an, with much of the heritage accessible on foot once you are inside the wall.

One of only three surviving Chinese walled cities of the late imperial period preserved in their original urban form. Pingyao was the financial centre of late-Qing northern China — the headquarters of the Rishengchang draft bank (1823), effectively China's first modern bank. The 6 kilometres of wall, the 4,000 surviving Ming and Qing courtyard residences, and the working temple complexes are intact enough that the town reads as a coherent late-imperial environment.

The inside-the-wall accommodation options are unfussy but characterful. Best visited in the May–June or September–October shoulder seasons.

252 caves and 51,000 carved Buddhist statues, cut into the sandstone cliffs at Wuzhou Shan, 16 kilometres west of Datong. Begun in 460 CE under the Northern Wei dynasty, abandoned by 525 CE. The early caves (16–20) are the most monumental — colossal Buddhas up to 17 metres high — and clearly show the Central Asian and Indian influences of the period before Buddhist art became visually 'Chinese'.

Pair with Hengshan's Hanging Temple (32 km southeast of Datong) for a full day in northern Shanxi's most distinctive religious architecture.