Best Time to Visit China

Geographical location

With over 1.35 billion inhabitants, China is the most populous country in the world and has more inhabitants than all of Europe, all of North America and Russia combined.

The People’s Republic of China has a mainland area of around 9.6 million square kilometers and borders 14 states. This makes China the fourth largest country in the world in terms of area behind the USA, Canada and Russia.

Its Chinese neighbours include Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan and India. Various natural borders separate the country from its neighbouring countries.

In the east and southeast, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea represent the state borders. Distinct mountain massifs provide a shield in the northwest, west, southwest and south. In the north of China one finds deserts and steppes as well as in the northeast the rivers Amur and Ussuri as natural borders.

China’s highest elevation is Mount Everest at 8848 meters, which lies directly on the border with Nepal. The Yangtzekiang River is the longest river in the People’s Republic at over 3900 miles.

Climate in China

From a scientific point of view, the huge country of China has up to 19 different climate zones. To simplify matters, however, we will confine ourselves to the four main climatic areas for basic orientation. The north-east, north and west of China is dominated by a continental climate with long and cold winters. In summer, however, heiß´und becomes moist with strong influences of the summer monsoon.

At temperatures of around 30 °C, the high humidity in summer can cause oppressive sultriness. In the areas of the Taklamakan desert up to the capital Beijing a rather dry desert climate is to be found. Large temperature fluctuations between day and night and extreme drought are characteristic of this area. In Beijing, rainfall is generally only significant between July and August.

If you travel from Beijing further east of China, the monsoon influence becomes increasingly clear. Cool, dry winters stand here in contrast to the very hot summers with heavy monsoon rain and an often unpleasant sultriness. The humidity is quite low in winter, but very high during the monsoon season. Further southeast the climate becomes subtropical.

The hot summers bring a lot of precipitation in this region, the nights cool only imperceptibly down. With up to 118.11 in of rain per year, the southeast is the rainiest area in China. In central China, on the other hand, there are high mountains with a cool mountain climate. In winter it gets icy cold and in summer moderately warm with a high sunshine duration.

Especially Tibet and the deserts in the center of China are extremely dry and record more than 5.91 in of rain in the whole year only in exceptional cases.