China provinces quiz: find every province on the map

The People’s Republic officially counts 34 province-level units, including Taiwan, which governs itself. The quiz asks for the other 33. Islands in the South China Sea are not shown on the map.

All provinces of China at a glance

33 units: 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities and 2special administrative regions, in the seven traditional regions. Where we have a city guide, it is linked.

Not in the table: Taiwan (台湾 · Táiwān), which the People’s Republic counts as a province but which governs itself.

The quickest way to learn the provinces

1. Start with the ten best known. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hong Kong, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Heilongjiang and Zhejiang: choose “The 10 best known” in the quiz. The others fall into place around these ten.
2. Then region by region. Play East, North & Northeast, Centre & South and West one at a time. The map zooms in on the region, and there are never more than ten provinces at once.
3. The names give away the location. Bei/北 means north, Nan/南 south, Dong/东 east, Xi/西 west. Hubei and Hunan lie north and south of Dongting Lake (Hu/湖 = lake), Hebei and Henan north and south of the Yellow River (He/河 = river), Shandong and Shanxi east and west of the Taihang Mountains (Shan/山 = mountain), Guangdong and Guangxi in the east and west of the old region of Guang.
4. Keep Shanxi and Shaanxi apart. Shanxi lies east of the Yellow River, Shaanxi with Xi’an west of it. A memory aid: the extra “a” stands for the longer way west.
5. Repeat your mistakes straight away. At the end of every round, “Practise my mistakes” plays exactly the provinces you missed. For a real challenge, switch the names to 汉字 in the settings.

Province, municipality, special administrative region – what is the difference?

Provinces (省, shěng) are the usual form, with a capital and many cities and counties below it. Autonomous regions (自治区) are provinces where a large ethnic minority lives – Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols, Zhuang and Hui; their full names say so, as in Guangxi Zhuang.

Municipalities (直辖市) – Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing – report directly to the central government and are at the same level as a province. They include a lot of countryside too: Chongqing is almost the size of Austria.Special administrative regions (特别行政区) are Hong Kong and Macau, with their own laws, their own currency and their own border controls.

FAQ

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