China in ten stops
A scrolling journey by train from the ice of Harbin to a palace on the roof of the world, with a question at every stop. Answer as you travel and get your score at the end.
China covers 9.6 million square kilometers, close to the size of the United States, and is home to about 1.4 billion people.
This trip makes ten stops in 24 days by rail and river, from the ice of Harbin to a palace on the roof of the world. Each stop ends with a question. Answer as you go, and your score is waiting at the end.
Fly into Harbin in the far northeast, where January nights often drop below −20 °C. Since 1985 the city has turned that cold into the Ice and Snow Festival, with whole palaces built of ice and lit from inside.
Harbin grew up around a Russian-built railway at the end of the 1800s. Saint Sophia Cathedral, finished in 1932 under a green onion dome, still stands at the heart of the old town.
Question 1 of 10
Where does the ice for Harbin's ice city come from?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
The fast train runs south to Beijing in about five hours. At the heart of the capital sits the Forbidden City, the palace of China’s emperors, walled off from ordinary people for centuries.
It holds about 980 buildings, the largest palace complex of its kind anywhere, and has been the Palace Museum since 1925. Tickets are sold online only, with your passport number, and often sell out days ahead. It is closed on Mondays.
Question 2 of 10
For roughly how long did emperors rule from the Forbidden City?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
An hour or so north of the city, the Great Wall follows the ridges at Mutianyu. Most of what visitors walk on here was rebuilt under the Ming dynasty in the 1500s.
The wall is really dozens of walls, built and rebuilt over some 2,000 years. Despite the famous claim, nobody can see it from the Moon with the naked eye. It is very long but only a few meters wide.
Question 3 of 10
Counting every section ever built, how long is the Great Wall?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Back in Beijing, the fast train reaches Shanghai in four and a half hours. It is China’s biggest city, with about 25 million people. Its port has been the busiest container port in the world every year since 2010.
On the west bank of the Huangpu, the old trading houses of the Bund look across at Pudong, where the 632 meter Shanghai Tower rises over a skyline built almost entirely since the 1990s.
Question 4 of 10
What was most of Pudong, across the river from the Bund, in 1990?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Another fast train follows the coast down past Xiamen to Hong Kong, which spent more than 150 years as a British colony. It is part of China today but keeps its own currency, courts and border checks under a deal called one country, two systems. Crossing over counts as leaving mainland China, so check that your visa lets you back in.
Victoria Harbour runs between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and the Star Ferry has carried people across it since the 1880s. Every night at eight, the towers on both shores light up together in a show set to music.
Question 5 of 10
In what year did Britain hand Hong Kong back to China?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Trains from Hong Kong reach Guilin in about three and a half hours. All around it the land breaks into hundreds of steep limestone peaks called karst, rising straight out of the rice fields.
Boats run about 80 km down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo. The bend at Xingping is so well loved that it is printed on one of China’s banknotes.
Question 6 of 10
The Li River near Guilin is printed on which Chinese banknote?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Ride north through Hunan to Yichang on the Yangtze. Upstream, the river cuts through the mountains in a run of cliffs called the Three Gorges, and cruise boats take about four days to sail up them to Chongqing.
At the end of the gorges stands the Three Gorges Dam, the most powerful hydroelectric plant in the world. Its ship lift raises whole boats more than 100 meters in one go.
Question 7 of 10
The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia. Where does it rank in the world?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Step off the boat in Chongqing and the fast train reaches Chengdu in under two hours. This is panda country. Wild giant pandas live in the mountains around the Sichuan basin, and the city has been breeding them since 1987.
A panda spends up to 14 hours a day eating, almost all of it bamboo. Sichuan is just as famous for its food, built on a pepper that makes your lips tingle.
Question 8 of 10
In Sichuan cooking, what does má là mean?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
A fast train tunnels north through the Qinling Mountains to Xi’an in about three and a half hours. It was the capital of more than a dozen dynasties and the eastern end of the Silk Road.
Outside town lies the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who united China in 221 BC and made himself its first emperor. He was buried with an army of life-size clay soldiers, each with a face of its own.
Question 9 of 10
Who found the Terracotta Army in 1974?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
The last leg is the highest railway in the world, a day and a half from Xi’an across the Tibetan Plateau to Lhasa. You can’t just buy a ticket, though. Foreign visitors need a Tibet Travel Permit, which only comes with a guided tour booked through a licensed agency, and Tibet usually closes to foreign tourists for a few weeks around March.
Lhasa sits about 3,650 meters up, so give the thin air a day or two. Above the city rises the Potala Palace, 13 stories of white and red walls begun in 1645, once the winter home of the Dalai Lamas and now a museum.
Question 10 of 10
How many time zones does China use?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
That was 24 days of track and river, and the route never went near Xinjiang, the far west, which on its own is about three times the size of France.
Time to see how you did.
0 of 10
You have not answered any questions yet. Scroll back up, and there is one waiting at every stop.
- HarbinDays 1–2 · HarbinNot answered yet
- Forbidden CityDays 3–4 · BeijingNot answered yet
- Great WallDay 5 · MutianyuNot answered yet
- ShanghaiDays 6–7 · ShanghaiNot answered yet
- Hong KongDays 8–9 · Hong KongNot answered yet
- Li RiverDays 10–11 · GuilinNot answered yet
- Three GorgesDays 12–16 · YichangNot answered yet
- Pandas of ChengduDays 17–18 · ChengduNot answered yet
- Terracotta ArmyDays 19–20 · Xi'anNot answered yet
- Potala PalaceDays 21–24 · LhasaNot answered yet