China

China is a civilization that decided to become a country. For over five thousand years, this stretch of eastern Asia has been continuously inhabited, governed, written about, and argued over - producing along the way paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass, silk, porcelain, and a writing system used by a quarter of humanity. The Great Wall is merely the most visible symbol of a culture that has always thought in terms of centuries rather than years.

Modern China moves at a pace that makes the rest of the world look idle. It has built more high-speed rail track than the rest of the planet combined, and turned Shenzhen from a fishing village into a tech metropolis of 18 million in a single generation. But beneath the skyscrapers, the old rhythms persist - tai chi in the parks at dawn, dumplings folded by hand, tea ceremonies that haven't changed in a thousand years. China contains multitudes, from the frozen steppes of Inner Mongolia to the tropical beaches of Hainan, and rewards those willing to look beyond the surface.