Heilongjiang - 13 Cities & Top Attractions

The world's largest annual ice festival - 200,000+ cubic meters of illuminated ice sculptures rebuilt every December-January.

Asia's longest pedestrian street, 1.4 km of European-style buildings, the Maduer ice-cream stall, and Harbin's main night-life street.

A 1907 Russian Byzantine red-brick cathedral, the largest Eastern Orthodox church in the Far East, now a city museum.

A Russian-themed manor south of Harbin with rebuilt Saint Nicholas Cathedral and 1950s Volga car collection, the most atmospheric Russian-style destination in China.

The century-old Harbin brewery (1900), China's most famous beer brand, with brewing heritage gallery and tasting.

China's largest ski resort and the alpine venue of the 1996 Winter Asian Games, with the 1,374-m Guokui Mountain peak.

The world's largest pure-bred Siberian tiger breeding base, with over 700 tigers in semi-wild enclosures.

The preserved site and museum of the Japanese Imperial Army's WWII biological-warfare research unit, a major dark-tourism destination.

A small village under three meters of snow each winter, China's most-photographed winter destination.

An early 20th-century Russian-built town on the China Eastern Railway, with the 1903 Orthodox church and locomotive museum.

1931 Manchu-military uprising site, the opening battle of the 14-year resistance against the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.

The easternmost point of Chinese land (Heixiazi Island), where the Heilongjiang and Wusuli rivers meet at sunrise.

A Hezhe ethnic minority village, the rare remaining community of the Amur river people, with fish-skin and fish-scale crafts.

Heilongjiang's largest wetland reserve on the China-Russia border, the easternmost point of China's territorial recovery.

Memorial to Wang Jinxi ('Iron Man Wang'), the petroleum worker who built Daqing's oil field during the 1960s industrial push.

The largest onshore oil-field museum in China, with the original drilling rig and worker dormitory from 1960.

Daqing's largest lake and wetland reserve, reed-bed birding and summer lotus fields.

WWII Russo-Japanese war fortress at the eastern end of the Wusuli river, still bearing the bullet marks from 1945.

Sanjiang Plain wetlands reserve, the largest wetland park in Heilongjiang and a major migratory-bird site.

Living museum of the 1950s Beidahuang reclamation movement that turned the wasteland into China's grain basket.

The China-Russia border cliff at Luobei, with the small Jiejinkou Russian-style village and the Heilongjiang river view.

Modern eco-tourism agricultural park, half-day countryside escape.

China's largest red-pine national park and Lesser Khingan primeval forest, the classic Lesser Khingan hiking destination.

Lesser Khingan cold-temperate wetland, autumn birch-and-aspen gold-and-red photography.

Premier forest-sea hiking and camping in the central Lesser Khingan range.

City-of-Qitaihe's local reservoir park, light hiking and autumn foliage.

Pick-your-own grapes in late summer and a one-day agritourism stop in eastern Heilongjiang.

The northernmost 'sand-baked flatbread' tradition, baked in iron ovens in the open air, a half-day food stop.

The 1929 General Zhang Xueliang-aligned county town with a 1940s black-brick commercial quarter.

The original 1684-1900 Manchurian-Russian frontier treaty site, the most historic Sino-Russian treaty museum.

China's northernmost village, the only place in mainland China where the Northern Lights (aurora) is occasionally visible.

The most-photographed section of the Yigen (Erguna) River loop in the northern Greater Khingan range.

Greater Khingan's administrative capital, a small forest-industry city in the heart of the largest larch forest in China.