Shaanxi History Museum

3d · Terracotta Army, City Wall, Muslim Quarter, the Wild Goose Pagodas.

4d · Xi'an Terracotta Warriors, Muslim Quarter, and Tang dynasty sites followed by Pingyao — China's best-preserved Ming and Qing walled county town. A tight, focused circuit for heritage travellers who want depth over breadth.

7d · Seven days in Beijing and Xi'an at a pace that works for children: fewer sites per day, breaks built in, and activities with hands-on appeal — the Panda Base of the north and hands-on history at the Terracotta Army.

7d · The canonical first-time China loop: two days in imperial Beijing, one day in Xi'an for the Terracotta Army, and two days in Shanghai. Linked by HSR throughout.

Beijing's history museum — bronze, ceramics, paintings, and a strong narrative of the city's evolution from Yan kingdom through the present.

Comprehensive museum of Chinese tea history, varieties, and culture. Free entry; in the Longjing tea-growing hills.

A world-class Han Dynasty imperial mausoleum museum near Xi'an presenting thousands of miniature terracotta tomb figures, including nude figurines originally dressed in silk, excavated from pits surrounding the burial mound of Emperor Jing (reigned 157–141 BCE).

Hong Kong's premier art museum on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. Strong Chinese painting and contemporary HK art collections.

Comprehensive museum of Hong Kong's history from prehistoric to the 1997 handover. Free entry.

Major provincial museum east of central Wuhan. Famous for the Bianzhong bell-set of the Marquis Yi of Zeng.

A museum of imperial Chinese porcelain built directly over the excavated site of the Ming and Qing imperial kilns, designed by architect Zhu Pei with brick-vaulted galleries that echo the form of the kilns themselves.

Bronze Age site museum on a 3,000-year-old ritual centre discovered in Chengdu in 2001. The Sun Bird gold disc is the symbol of Chengdu.

Blog · Tang dynasty Chang'an (618–907 CE) was, at its height, the largest city in the world — approximately 1 million people within the walls, and perhaps twice that including the surrounding metropolitan area. It was a city of boulevards, markets, religious diversity, and deliberate cosmopolitan design.

Blog · The Tang dynasty lasted roughly 300 years and produced Li Bai and Du Fu, the world's first printing culture, female emperors, and a capital (Chang'an, today's Xi'an) that was the most cosmopolitan city of the medieval world. Here is what to know.

Blog · Xi'an was the capital of unified China for ~1,000 cumulative years across 13 dynasties. The Han and Tang peaks, the Qin layer (Terracotta Army), the Ming-walled city, and how the modern visit reveals each layer.

Blog · If a friend asked me to plan their first two weeks in China today, this is the route — Beijing → Xi'an → Chengdu → Guilin → Shanghai. Pacing, transitions, what to skip.