Liaoning

Dalian occupies the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula with a coastline, colonial architecture, and cosmopolitan atmosphere that distinguish it from the rest of northeast China. The city centre around Zhongshan Square preserves a ring of early twentieth-century buildings from the Russian and Japanese periods — the former Yamato Hotel (now the Dalian Hotel), the Bank of Chosen building, and the old Japanese railway headquarters form an architectural ensemble rare in China. The Laohutan (Tiger Beach) Ocean Park and Xinghai Square (claimed as Asia's largest public square) front the waterfront. Dalian's seafood is the province's culinary highlight — sea cucumbers, abalone, sea urchin, scallops, and razor clams served fresh at the harbour-front restaurants of Donggang fishing port. The city maintains a tram system inherited from the Japanese era (line 201 is a heritage route using original rolling stock). Jinshitan (Golden Pebble Beach), thirty kilometres northeast, is a geological park of weathered rock formations along a sandy coast.

Dandong, on the Yalu River directly opposite the North Korean city of Sinuiju, is one of China's most unusual travel experiences. The Broken Bridge (Yalu River Broken Bridge), bombed by American aircraft during the Korean War, extends halfway across the river and ends abruptly — visitors walk to the broken end and peer across at North Korea, less than a hundred metres away. The adjacent Friendship Bridge carries the train and road traffic that constitutes one of North Korea's main supply lines. Boat tours on the Yalu River approach within metres of the North Korean shore, passing fishing boats, riverside villages, and a Ferris wheel in the Sinuiju amusement park. The Korean War Memorial Museum in Dandong is China's most comprehensive museum of the conflict (called the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" in Chinese). Dandong is 1.5 hours from Shenyang by high-speed rail and can be visited as a day trip.

Shenyang (known historically as Mukden) was the cradle of the Qing dynasty — the last and longest-ruling foreign dynasty in Chinese history. Nurhaci, the Manchu chieftain who unified the Jurchen tribes, established his capital here in 1625 and began building the Imperial Palace. His son Hong Taiji expanded the palace, proclaimed the Qing dynasty in 1636, and was buried in the Zhaoling Tomb (North Tomb) after his death. The subsequent Qing conquest of Beijing and all of China proper (1644) was launched from Shenyang. The three UNESCO-listed sites — the Imperial Palace, Fuling Tomb, and Zhaoling Tomb — tell this founding story in architecture: the early, distinctly Manchu-Mongolian palace buildings contrast with the later halls that adopted Chinese imperial conventions, documenting the cultural absorption that made Qing rule possible.

The Liaoning coastline along the Bohai Gulf (western coast) and the Yellow Sea (eastern coast) contains several distinctive attractions. Xingcheng, a complete Ming-dynasty walled city on the Bohai shore, preserves its rectangular wall circuit, gate towers, and street grid largely intact — combined with a sandy beach immediately outside the walls, it offers an unusual fortification-and-seaside combination. Bijia Mountain (Bijiashan), near Jinzhou, is connected to the mainland by a natural stone causeway that emerges at low tide — visitors walk across to the island temple complex and must return before the water rises. Yingkou and Bayuquan on the Bohai Gulf are traditional beach resorts popular with northeastern Chinese families. The eastern coastline from Dalian south includes cleaner water and better beaches — Bangchuidao and Fujiazhuang in Dalian and the islands of Changshan are popular summer destinations.