Where to Stay in Handan, Hebei Sheng

What is Handan known for?

Handan served as the capital of the Zhao State through the Warring States Period, which is why the city presents itself as one of the oldest in China rather than as one more prefecture on the plain, and Handan, Zhao is where that claim is grounded. Iron casting followed. Cizhou ware, the Xiangtangshan Caves and Nüwa Palace round out a list running from craft to devotion, with the Handan Museum and the Yecheng Museum holding the finds.

What are the main landmarks in Handan?

Caves lead the list. The Xiangtangshan Caves are carved into rock away from the city, the Nüwa Palace stands as a destination in its own right, and Guangfu Castel keeps a walled circuit the modern districts have nothing to match. Ye is the deep past.

The Yecheng Museum, the Cishan Site, the Guzhen City Ruins and the Lincun Tombs are all excavated ground, while the Hongji Bridge, the Mother of Grace Cathedral, Daming and the Jinjiluyu Martyr Cemetery belong to far later centuries.

What is the history of Handan?

Few cities in China claim a longer run. Handan was the capital of the Zhao State through the Warring States Period, and Handan, Zhao is the archaeological expression of that, the ground the written record keeps returning to. The Cishan Site goes back further still.

Ye belongs to a later chapter and is set out in the Yecheng Museum, while the Guzhen City Ruins and the Lincun Tombs mark settlements and burials whose names never carried the same weight. Iron and clay carried the later economy. Casting made the city's reputation for craft, and Cizhou ware was fired in the county kilns long enough that the type still carries the old prefecture's name, a rarer kind of survival than a wall or a tomb.

Belief left its own marks. The Xiangtangshan Caves and the Northern Dynasties tombs of Ci County came out of one age of patronage, the Nüwa Palace, the Main Hall of Tianqing Temple and the Shanmen of Chengtang Temple out of others, and the Mother of Grace Cathedral, Daming out of a much later contact with the world beyond. The Jinjiluyu Martyr Cemetery closes the sequence.

Where is Handan?

Three provinces close in around it. Handan borders Xingtai on the north, with Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south and Shandong to the east, which makes it the last prefecture of Hebei before the provincial line. The plain does the rest.

Yongnian District and Shahe City have run together into what reads on the map as a single built-up area, while the Xiangtangshan Caves and the tombs of Ci County need the harder ground out beyond the fields.

What is the climate of Handan?

Handan takes a temperate inland pattern, with the higher ground toward Shanxi on one side and open plain in every other direction. Winter is dry and hard. Summer rain arrives in a compressed season that greens the fields between the urban districts and Yongnian District, while the dust blowing across the plain in spring is the reason the Xiangtangshan Caves photograph better in autumn.

How do you get to Handan?

Handan stands on the main line through Hebei. Trains running between Xingtai and the Henan cities call here, which makes it an easy stop for anyone already moving along that corridor rather than a place travellers make a special journey for. The county sites are the problem.

The Xiangtangshan Caves, Guangfu Castel and Ye each need a car or a local bus, and the distances across a prefecture this size are why a day trip out of the centre rarely covers more than one of them.