Top 10 Chinese UNESCO World Heritage Sites

The 72-hectare palace complex in the heart of Beijing was inscribed in 1987 and contains the most complete surviving ensemble of ancient Chinese wooden architecture.

These remarkably preserved Ming and Qing dynasty villages in Anhui Province feature whitewashed walls, grey-tiled roofs, and a water system that still functions after 600 years.

A Sichuan highland valley of impossibly turquoise lakes, multi-tiered waterfalls, and snow-capped peaks that forms one of China's most visually stunning natural landscapes.

Inscribed in 1987, these 492 painted cave temples in the Gobi Desert represent the world's finest surviving repository of Silk Road Buddhist art and manuscripts.

The granite peaks of Anhui's Yellow Mountain — draped in cloud, pine, and bizarre rock formations — have inspired Chinese landscape painting for over a thousand years.

The remarkably intact old town of Lijiang in Yunnan features a 800-year-old water distribution system still in use and a living Naxi ethnic minority culture.

The serene West Lake and its causeways, islands, and temples shaped by 1,000 years of cultural activity have influenced garden design across China and the world.

The sacred spirit roads, ceremonial gates, and underground palaces of the imperial tombs outside Beijing embody China's most sophisticated funerary architecture.

Over 3,000 quartzite sandstone pillars, natural bridges, and ravines in Hunan Province make Wulingyuan one of the most visually dramatic natural world heritage sites.