Four Chinese villages listed among UN Tourism's 2025 "Best Tourism Villages"

Four Chinese villages were listed in the UN Tourism's 2025 edition of "Best Tourism Villages," according to announcements made at a UN Tourism awards ceremony on Friday in Huzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province.

The four listed villages are Digang in Zhejiang, Jikayi in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dongluo, which is administered by Taizhou City in east China's Jiangsu Province, and Huanggang in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province.

With these four villages, China now boasts a total of 19 "Best Tourism Villages" as recognized by the UN Tourism, with 15 other Chinese villages listed over previous years.

Digang Village, with its serene landscapes, traditional architecture, and vibrant natural scenery, preserves the world's most complete mulberry-based fish pond system and gave birth to China's sericulture and silk-weaving techniques.

Jikayi, which is situated on a high-altitude plateau, is celebrated for its biodiversity and multiethnic heritage that includes the Tibetan, Qiang and Yi ethnic groups.

Nestled within the core area of the Xinghua Duotian Agrosystem, a recognized World Heritage Irrigation Structure, the picturesque Dongluo Village is home to a water forest and a scenic area of rapeseed flowers, featuring grid-patterned raised fields along rivers and lakes.

Huanggang Village preserves and carries forward the thousand-year-old production and lifestyle traditions of the Dong ethnic group. It also serves as a living repository of the Dong people's ancient rice–fish–duck symbiotic farming system.

According to a Ministry of Culture and Tourism official in charge of application work for the award, the four newly selected villages reflect the comprehensive, diversified development of China's rural tourism sector.

UN Tourism's continuous recognition of China's rural destinations attests to the exemplary work of China's rural tourism industry, and to global acclaim for the drastic changes taking place in rural China.

Four Chinese villages listed among UN Tourism's 2025 "Best Tourism Villages"

The operational efficiency of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in south China's Guangdong Province has greatly improved following the launch of a new terminal and a new runway one month ago.

The airport officially put into operation its Terminal 3 and fifth runway on October 30, making it China's first civil airport to operate five commercial runways.

Terminal 3 features a range of self-service facilities, including check-in kiosks, automated baggage drop systems, and smart security screening equipment, which have greatly streamlined passenger processing.

Since its opening, five airlines have shifted their domestic operations to Terminal 3, which now handles an average of 158 flights and about 26,000 passengers daily.

"Compared with Terminal 1, both the number of staffed counters and self-service kiosks of Terminal 3 have increased significantly, greatly reducing the average check-in time for passengers. For domestic direct flights, the entire check-in process can be completed in a minimum of one minute," said Shi Mengyao, a staffer with the ground service department of the Guangdong branch of China Eastern Airlines.

Beyond efficiency improvements, the terminal also includes an observation deck that offers travelers panoramic views of the airfield.

"Since its opening, the observation deck attracts over 3,000 visitors per day on average, with total visits exceeding 100,000 to date," said Luo Li, deputy general manager of a terminal management company at Baiyun International Airport.

The airport's expansion also marks another step toward building a world-class airport cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

"The airport's expansion not only consolidates the Greater Bay Area as an aviation hub connecting China with the world, but also helps lower logistics costs within the area, promote the free flow and efficient allocation of economic resources, and enhances the area's capacity for global resource allocation," said Li Jing, chief planner with the Guangdong Provincial Department of Transport.

New terminal, runway boost operational efficiency of airport in Guangzhou