2026 China Travel Cities Tier List

Snapshot 2026-09-08. The main table uses each city’s published 2025 visitor arrivals. The MCT bulletin puts domestic trips at 6.522 billion. The tier board also keeps cities without a published full-year count (Wuhan, Qingdao, Zhangjiajie, Lijiang, Hong Kong, and others) in the pool. Global cities: global travel cities. Related: hotel groups, airports.

Arrivals, 夯 to 拉完了

Chongqing’s reported full-year domestic visitors are 506 million, first in 夯. Shanghai counted 416.4 million domestic visitors; inbound 9.36 million is separate. Beijing 390 million visitors, 715.93 billion yuan spent. Kunming is an estimated 360 million; Xi'an 327 million and Chengdu 322 million share the same tier. Sanya 36.16 million and Dunhuang 24.39 million sit in 拉完了.

How we ranked this

Snapshot 2026-09-08. Mainland cities only on the main board, by published 2025 visitor arrivals: 夯 ≥300 million, 顶级 200–300 million (including “over 200 million”), 人上人 100–200 million, NPC 40–100 million or Meadian’s “over 50 million” band, 拉完了 under 40 million. City scopes differ (some include residents). No invented decimals. Counties stay off the main table. National totals: Ministry of Culture and Tourism 2025 bulletin. Names: docs/glossaries/travel-cities-cn-glossary.md. Global cities: global travel cities. Related: hotel groups, airports.

Spend, same year

Only cities with a published yuan figure. Beijing 715.93 billion yuan is above Shanghai’s domestic tourism revenue of 566.681 billion. Chengdu 430.0 billion, Kunming 405.0 billion, Xi'an 402.62 billion.

Hong Kong and Macau

HKTB’s preliminary 2025 figure is 49.90 million arrivals, up 12%. Macau’s government counted 40.069 million inbound visitors, up 14.7%. Those series sit beside the mainland board, not on it.