The Li River and Karst Mountains, near Guilin, China. Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

In a vast land with several millennia of history and an eagerness for superlatives, most visitors to China have a hard-enough time just keeping track of big walls, terracotta warriors and which skyscraper is now the nation's tallest. How many people beyond China have even heard of Jiangsu Province on the east-central coast near Shanghai?

Probably not many, and yet it's China's wealthiest and most densely-populated province, and it alone has a nation's-worth of cultural relics and mid-sized cities that ought to be world famous.

Everyone knows X'ian thanks to its terracotta warriors, but kudos if you're familiar with Xuzhou, a stop in Jiangsu Province on the high-speed train line between Shanghai and Beijing. Here, you can admire one of China's unsung wonders, another set of soldiers and horses that dates from the second-century BC Han Dynasty. The 4800 figures, much smaller than life size and arranged in battle formation, were excavated from the tomb of a local king. Some wear armour and carry crossbows.

Xuzhou – which has a population of a mere three million – is only one of Jiangsu Province's minor cities boasting fabulous cultural relics. Also worth the train journey stop-off is Wuxi, an ancient tin-mining town and port on the Grand Canal that faces vast Taihu Lake, perhaps China's most famous lake. It's the source of the fantastically weathered limestone rocks you often see in classical Chinese gardens. Ferries take sightseers out on the lake, which is often misty. Alternatively, climb up the two hills of Xihui Park to pagodas that provide pretty outlooks.

The ancient town of Suzhou, China . Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

This area west of Shanghai is noted for its many water villages. Across on the southern shore of Taihu Lake is what might be the prettiest, Nanxun. It features all the stereotypes of old China, from ancestral halls hung with red lanterns to cobblestone lanes and half-moon bridges. Pleasant canal-side walkways are made for strolling.

The most famous town, though, is Suzhou – still considered a minor city in China despite being home to some 10 million residents. It's an easy daytrip from Shanghai, though actually a more pleasant place to overnight. Nicknamed the Venice of the East for its many canals and surrounding moat, Suzhou was probably the world's wealthiest city during the Ming Dynasty and is dotted with aristocratic, now World Heritage-listed, gardens. Though compact in size, their impeccable arrangements of rocks, pavilions and walkways provide changing vistas that make the gardens appear larger, and provide corners of tranquillity despite visitor numbers. Among the most famous is the 16th-century Garden of the Humble Administrator, where a series of pools is connected by stepping-stone pathways and humped bridges. In summer, fragrant lotus flowers bloom on the ponds and dragonflies flit.

The city's other great cultural attraction is the Museum of Suzhou, housed in a striking modern building designed by I.M. Pei, most famous for his Louvre pyramid. It's a repository of tens of thousands of works, including ceramics, jade, textiles and sculptures from Suzhou's great flowering as a scholarly and artistic centre, and certainly proof that you don't have to head to China's biggest cities for the best museums.

Suzhou is, incidentally, another stop on the high-speed train line towards Beijing, as is Jinan much further north. Like most Chinese cities, Jinan is busily bursting upwards and outwards, but dozens of natural springs have created blue pools and lakes that are still surrounded by pockets of neighbourhood tranquillity where locals practice tai chi and live in little alleyways. The city has fine museums, too, such as Jinan Museum for ceramics and calligraphy, and the vast Provincial Museum for fabulous objects from China's long history, including pottery that is 3000 years old.

Although Jinan remains virtually unknown outside China, its population is a hefty seven million. Even the smallest of places in China, though, are crammed with amazing relics. Pingyao in Shanxi Province, about halfway between Beijing and Xian and managing only 50,000 inhabitants, is the country's best-preserved 18th-century Qing Dynasty town, and one of the most delightful places in China. Although it's a mere newcomer by Chinese standards, its importance as an early banking centre has graced it with impressive mansions, civic buildings and six-kilometre city walls from which you can peer down onto dragon-draped temple roofs and into courtyards, where ears of corn are strung out to dry.

Further south, Kaifeng had its heyday a thousand years ago as China's imperial capital, when it was likely the world's largest city, with an estimated 700,000 inhabitants. (Today it's a minnow with just five million.) Its oldest building, Fan Pagoda, was built in 997, and is just one of dozens of pagodas, temples and pavilions dotting the old