Changchun

Capital of Jilin and former capital of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (1932–45). Manchurian palace, automobile industry, Lake Songhua winter sports nearby.

Changchun is the provincial capital of Jilin, in China's northeast, and carries one of the more complex historical identities of any Chinese city. Between 1932 and 1945 it was Hsinking — the capital of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state that controlled Manchuria under the nominal rule of Puyi, the last Qing emperor. The Japanese planned and built it as a showcase imperial capital, with broad boulevards, Western neoclassical government buildings, and a rail network; many of those structures survive and define the city's central grid in ways that have no counterpart elsewhere in China.

The Manchurian Imperial Palace Museum (Weiman Huanggong) is the central historical site: the complex of official and residential buildings where Puyi lived from 1934 until the Soviet invasion of Manchuria ended the puppet state in August 1945. The buildings are modest by imperial standards — Puyi was a controlled figurehead rather than a sovereign — and the museum's most effective exhibits trace the political machinery of the occupation and the personal circumstances of a man who had already lost his throne once as a child. The palace sits alongside older Qing-dynasty gardens at the same site.

The post-war city was remade as an industrial centre under the People's Republic. First Automobile Works (FAW), established in Changchun in 1953, was the cradle of China's automobile industry; the Jiefang (Liberation) brand truck produced here was the first domestically manufactured motor vehicle. FAW still operates in the city; a museum traces the industry's history.

Changchun retains one of the few surviving urban tram networks in China — a practical legacy rather than a tourist attraction, but a useful way to understand the city's older layout.

The surrounding landscape rewards a day trip. Jingyuetan National Forest Park, 20 kilometres southeast, covers a large reservoir surrounded by Manchurian pine and larch forest. In winter, the ski resort here runs alongside ice and snow activities that are genuinely wintry — Changchun's winters reach -20°C. Lake Songhua, 90 minutes east, is the venue for the Vasaloppet China cross-country ski race (the China edition of the famous Swedish race).

The Changchun World Sculpture Park in the south of the city holds over 400 monumental sculptures from artists across more than 70 countries, accumulated since the 1990s — an unexpected institution in a northeast industrial city.