南通市

Why this place

Nantong is unusual: in the early twentieth century the industrialist Zhang Jian built a whole modern city here — schools, museums, theatres, a hospital, factories — as a deliberate experiment in Chinese modernity. The Nantong Museum, founded in 1905, is the first museum built by a Chinese person in China.

What to see

• The Nantong Museum, founded 1905, in Zhang Jian's park setting
• The Zhang Jian memorial and the industrial sites he built
• Langshan, a hill on the Yangtze with temples and a good river view

What to eat

• Nantong seafood from the Yangtze estuary
• Wenfeng and the local-style river fish dishes

Best time

April–May and September–October