China Cruises

One of the oldest civilizations on earth, China is a land of history, spirituality and great beauty. River cruises through China are journeys through time, from small villages to bustling modern cities. Visitors who travel with Viking River Cruises will see the great cities of Beijing and Shanghai, the ancient wonders of Xian, and the spectacular Three Gorges region of the mighty Yangtze River.

China is an Asian country; its capital is Beijing. China dominates a vast portion of the Eurasian continent (with more than 1.3 billion people it is also the most populous), encompassing the earth’s highest mountains, largest desert and third-longest river—the Yangtze River. China’s traditional; name is Zhongguo, or Middle Kingdom; even the name of the imperial center of the Middle Kingdom, the Forbidden City, embodies China’s historic determination to keep itself free from outside influence. When Communism emerged as the ruling force in China, the isolation of the country did not lessen—if anything, it increased, and China became even more impenetrable. It is only in the past three decades that China has welcome Western tourism. Fortunately, China’s historic isolation and its reverence for the past have kept its ancient treasures and extraordinary landscapes remarkably well-preserved for us to admire and enjoy.

China boasts the longest continuously used written language system, and was the source of pivotal human inventions such as paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing technologies. The Chinese language has more than 100 dialects and is the most commonly spoken language in the world; to unify the country’s spoken language, the Chinese government encourages use of the dialect we know as Mandarin Chinese. China’s contributions to literature, science and technology, the visual arts, music, dance, architecture and landscape design have been legion. Archeological evidence suggests that there may have been humans in China for tens of thousands of years. China has been ruled by successive dynasties, beginning with the bronze-age Xia and continuing through the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan (established by Mongol emperor Kublai Khan), Ming and the Qing, established by the Manchus in 1644 and lasting until 1912. The last Chinese emperor was Puyi, 2-year-old nephew of the previous emperor Guangxu, placed on the throne in 1908. In January of 1912 the Republic of China was established with Sun Yat-sen as its first provisional president. The politically fragmented China was united in the late 1920s under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, after the Sino-Japanese War and a Chinese Civil War, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was formed under the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. China underwent a series of socioeconomic movements—the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s—but with the death of its first-generation leaders the PRC has implemented political and economic reforms that have facilitated rapid economic growth in the 1990s and beyond.

China is a land of great contrasts, with many ancient wonders coexisting side by side with modern, dynamic cities. The country is home to most of the world’s religions, most notably Buddhism and Taoism but also Christianity, Islam and Judaism; philosophically, the country has adhered to Confucianism for thousands of years. Its immense geographic area covers terrain from mountains and plateaus in the north to subtropical areas in the south.

Our China river cruises feature stunning vistas of many of China’s diverse landscapes. China cruises travel along the Yangtze River. The river is one of the nation’s top tourist attractions in itself, especially dramatic Three Gorges Region and the fascinating Three Gorges Dam. Flowing across the entire width of China, the river cuts the country in half. Consequently, it has historically marked the division between north and south China. Cruises along the Yangtze River provide a glimpse into the geographic, historical, and cultural treasures of China.