Beautiful China (@PDChinaLife)

Need a cool escape? Head to a cafe inside a karst cave in southwest China's Chongqing, where rich coffee, natural coolness, and a stunning cave interior make for the perfect summer retreat. #ChinaCool#

Imagine driving a single route that takes you along China's entire land border and coastline. That is exactly what a massive new 27,000-kilometer loop will make possible. According to the Ministry of Transport, China plans to build this super-highway during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030) by linking three major routes—the G219, G331, and G228—end to end. Tracing the country's borders and coastline, the journey will stretch more than half the length of the Earth's equator. Far more than a transportation corridor, the route weaves together hundreds of scenic areas and historic cities, offering a journey across some of China's most diverse landscapes. G219 runs about 10,000 km from the Kanas Scenic Area in northwest China’s Xinjiang to Dongxing in south China's Guangxi, crossing deserts, the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the Himalayas, and other spectacular terrain. G331 stretches about 9,200 km along China's northern border, taking travelers through the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia, the fertile plains of northeast China, and iconic destinations including Fuyuan, Mohe, Changbai Mountain, and the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains. G228 extends about 7,400 km from Dongxing in Guangxi to Dandong in Liaoning Province, linking China's coastal provinces and dozens of seaside cities. Running across major rivers including the Pearl, Yangtze, Yellow, and Yalu, it offers sweeping views of the country's coastline. If you could explore one part of this epic loop, where would you start?

Why china called ‘China’？ Why has China’s porcelain craft lasted for 2,000 years uninterrupted? How did the unique "Jing Piao" community take shape here? Now that China's Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Let’s seek answers in Jingdezhen, China’s capital of porcelain.

The box office revenue of commercial performances in China reached 30.408 billion yuan (around 4.49 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2026, up 9.41% year on year, with audience numbers topping 98.8 million, up 5.28% from the same period last year, according to the China Association of Performing Arts.

Take a night walk through Xiahaoli, a historical and cultural block in southwest China's Chongqing, and embrace its unique charm as the traditional hillside architecture meets modern vibes.

A woolly hare forages on a flower-dotted meadow in Shiqu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. Its fluffy fur, slender ears, and playful energy make this wildlife scene utterly charming.

Tales of Cities | Tongren, where China's matcha capital hides in plain sight Most people who drink matcha assume it is Japanese. In Tongren, a mountain city tucked into southwest China's Guizhou Province, that assumption meets a quiet correction. The tea tradition long associated with Japan can be traced back further to China's Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). During the Song Dynasty, a method called diancha, whisking powdered tea into hot water until it turns pale and frothy, was already widespread among monks and scholars. Gu Lijun, a county-level inheritor of that Song Dynasty tradition, traces the practice back even earlier still, to the Wei and Jin dynasties (220-420). The technique now associated with Japanese tea ceremony, in other words, started in China, centuries before it ever crossed the sea. Tongren is now working to reclaim that origin story with production rather than just history. The city wears the title "China's matcha capital" for good reason, ranking first nationally and second worldwide in matcha production and sales. That scale is easy to state as a statistic and harder to picture, until you trace the leaf back to the mountain that makes it possible. Mount Fanjing rises more than 2,500 meters above the surrounding tea country, its ancient rock formations emerging from clouds that never quite leave, wrapped in mist and rain for more than 200 days a year, long enough that locals treat a clear day at the summit as luck rather than expectation. It is a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, home to plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth, and the climb to its Red Cloud Golden Summit is demanding by design, steep enough in places to require hands as well as feet. It is a mountain that guards its own secrets. Almost everything grown in its shadow carries that same difficulty, and benefits from it. At the Qizimei Tea Garden in Jiangkou county, plantation head Chen Chunlian tends 220 mu (about 14.67 hectares) of Fuding Dabai, Wuniuzao and Longjing tea, all destined to become tencha, the ground raw material for matcha, with Mount Fanjing visible from the rows themselves. Walk the plantation's lower slopes and the rows of low, dense bushes stretch across the hillside in every direction, broken only by mist rolling down from above, tended by farmers who speak of the mountain with a quiet, matter-of-fact devotion, as though caring for something this rare were simply what one does here. Chen explains that the mountain's high altitude, limited sunlight and near-constant cloud cover raise the amino acid content of the leaves, improving quality well beyond what flatland tea can achieve. Farmers add a further layer of engineering before harvest, covering the plants to block out even more light. Less sunlight means more chlorophyll and more theanine, the compound chemistry behind both matcha's saturated green color and its umami depth. The effect has a name in the trade: "covered aroma." Gu describes the resulting flavor in more familiar terms, bright and fresh, carrying what tea drinkers usually just call "the aroma of seaweed." From there, the leaf still has a distance to travel before it becomes the powder found on shelves abroad. At Gui Tea Group's matcha workshop, production supervisor Li Tingbao oversees the fine processing stage: aroma enhancement, color sorting, grinding and screening, followed by air separation, a step that filters out stems before the refined tea drops into a material bin to await blending. Only after grinding does it finally become matcha in the form most people would recognize. Li reports that the workshop's output has grown quickly, from roughly 2,500 tonnes in 2025 to an expected 5,000 tonnes this year, doubling in a single season and underscoring how fast global demand has moved. What happens to that matcha afterward is where Tongren's ambitions become most visible, and most inventive, and it tracks a pattern playing out across the industry worldwide, where matcha has moved well past the teacup into bakery cases, dessert menus and skincare shelves. Tang Yunpeng, general manager of Guizhou Guigui Matcha Food Co., Ltd., leads a team developing matcha products well outside tradition: sun cakes with a flaky, crumbly crust wrapped around matcha filling, cheesecakes, chocolates. Tongren's matcha, Tang notes, carries a stronger bitterness and fuller flavor than matcha grown elsewhere, a distinction that comes through clearly once it is baked, whisked or melted into something else. Elsewhere in the city, matcha turns up in dumplings, noodles, beer, chapstick, hand lotion and perfume. At this point, matcha in Tongren is less an ingredient than a category of its own. At a local nongjiale, a uniquely Chinese agritainment venue operated by local farmers that doubles as a restaurant and a window into local life, located in Yunshe village of Taiping town in Tongren's Jiangkou county, villager Yang Yanfei's table typically arrives loaded with Larou, the salt-cured smoked pork that anchors Guizhou home cooking, alongside a dish that still catches newcomers off guard: matcha sturgeon, the tea's flavor threaded lightly through the fish rather than layered over it. It is not a novelty so much as evidence of how completely matcha has settled into daily life here, alongside the area's clean air and unspoiled mountains and water, which Yang credits as the real foundation beneath all of it. For the people who make Tongren's matcha economy run, from tea garden to processing floor to test kitchen, the ambitions are collective, and they add up to something larger than any single product. Chen speaks of the quiet pride in supplying the raw material that starts the entire chain. Tang hopes matcha becomes something bigger still: a calling card not just for Tongren, but for Guizhou and for China as a whole. As matcha continues its rise in cafes and kitchens far beyond Guizhou, Tongren's name is beginning to travel with it.

Spectators were treated to a thrilling display of speed and showmanship at the 36th Naadam Festival on Saturday, as high-spirited equestrian performers wowed the crowd in Xilin Gol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

A dose of cuteness from the wild! Two adorable marmots were captured on camera standing amid the grass and looking around inquisitively in Shiqu County, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Grace and prowess on display! Female archers exuded confidence as they showcased their skills at the 36th Tourism Naadam Festival held in the Xilin Gol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.