Experience the best of Shenyang

Known to the Manchu rulers as Mukden, Shenyang was made their capital by Nurhaci in 1625, and his successors built the Imperial Palace, a compact complex of halls and courtyards in Manchu, Mongol and Han styles, before the court moved to Beijing in 1644. The palace is a World Heritage site, as are the Fuling and Zhaoling tombs of early Qing rulers on the edges of the city.

Beyond the imperial sites, Shenyang is a major industrial city of the north-east, with broad avenues, pedestrian shopping streets and a museum about the 1931 Mukden Incident, which led to Japan's occupation of Manchuria. Zhaoling lies in Beiling Park, a large park of old pines on the north side of the city, and the Hun River runs along the south.

North-eastern cooking is hearty and warming: pickled-cabbage stew with pork, dumplings, sweet and sour fried pork, and plenty of lamb skewers. Winter is long and cold, with snow, and the city is pleasantest from late spring to early autumn.