Shenyang 沈阳Shěnyáng

About Shenyang

Liaoning's capital was the Manchu seat of power before the Qing took Beijing: Nurhaci moved his court here in 1625, and the Mukden Palace and the imperial tombs in Beiling and Dongling parks, both on the UNESCO list, date from that era. The 9.18 Historical Museum recalls the 1931 Mukden Incident, which opened Japan's occupation of the north-east, and the Industrial Museum of China fills an old foundry in the factory district of Tiexi.

What to eat in Shenyang

• Laobian dumplings (老边饺子)
• Grilled chicken frames (烤鸡架)

Featured places in Shenyang

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  Mukden Palace 沈阳故宫

  The Manchu palace where the Qing dynasty was proclaimed, years before it took Beijing

  Best time: May–Oct · Time needed: 2–3 hours · 4A scenic area · National heritage site · UNESCO World Heritage

Listed sites in Shenyang

34 sites in Shenyang are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.

• Shenyang Botanical Garden 沈阳植物园 5A scenic area
  A 246-hectare garden in the Qipanshan area on the north-eastern edge of Shenyang, founded in 1959 and the site of the 2006 China Shenyang International Horticultural Exposition, which is why it is also called the Shenyang Expo Garden.
• 9.18 Historical Museum “九·一八”历史博物馆 4A scenic area
  A museum in north-eastern Shenyang documenting the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, when Japanese forces attacked Shenyang, through photographs, objects and audio-visual displays.
• BMW Brilliance Tiexi Plant 华晨宝马铁西工厂 4A scenic area · on the map
  A car factory in Tiexi district, run by BMW Brilliance and opened in 2012, which in February 2017 became the first car plant in China to receive a national 4A tourist rating.
• Fuling Mausoleum (Dongling Park) 清福陵（东陵公园） 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  The tomb of Nurhaci, founder of the Later Jin state that preceded the Qing dynasty, and his wife Empress Xiaocigao, begun in 1629 on a wooded hillside and added to the UNESCO-listed Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in 2004.
• Hot Go Park 丰远热高乐园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large resort of about five square kilometres in the Shenyang–Fushun (Shenfu) Reform and Innovation Demonstration Zone, between the two cities.
• Industrial Museum of China 中国工业博物馆 4A scenic area · on the map
  A museum in Tiexi, Shenyang's old heavy-industry district, built in and around the former casting workshop of the Shenyang Foundry, a hall of 1956 where giant ladles and furnaces still stand.
• Liaoning Science and Technology Museum 辽宁省科学技术馆 4A scenic area · on the map
  The provincial science and technology museum, in the cluster of new cultural buildings in Hunnan district beside the Liaoning Provincial Museum.
• Marshal Zhang's Mansion 张学良旧居 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  The former residence and offices of the Northeast warlord Zhang Zuolin and his son Zhang Xueliang, begun in 1914 in the old city of Shenyang.
• Old North Market (Laobeishi) 老北市 4A scenic area · on the map
  A pedestrian quarter on the site of the Beishichang market, a trading and street-entertainment district founded in 1921, which was redeveloped in the style of its earlier buildings, with the work completed on 1 October 2020.
• Qipanshan Scenic Area 沈阳棋盘山 4A scenic area · on the map
  A hill-and-lake recreation area in north-eastern Shenyang, on a spur of the Changbai mountains and named for a boulder on Mount Qipan that is said to be a chessboard on which two of the Eight Immortals once played.
• Rice Dream Space 稻梦空间 4A scenic area · on the map
  An agri-tourism park in the rice-growing countryside of Shenbei district, north of Shenyang, whose main feature is rice-field art: coloured rice varieties are planted to form large pictures that can be viewed from an observation platform.
• Royal Ocean Park 皇家海洋乐园 4A scenic area · on the map
  An ocean-themed leisure park of about 60 hectares in the Shenyang–Fushun (Shenfu) Reform and Innovation Demonstration Zone, between the two cities, laid out as six themed worlds.
• SAC Aviation Expo Park 沈飞航空博览园 4A scenic area
  An aviation museum run by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (AVIC Shenyang), on Lingbei Street beside the company's factory, which tells the story of the firm and the fighter aircraft it has built.
• Sannong Expo Park, Xinmin 沈阳三农博览园 4A scenic area · on the map
  An agriculture-themed cultural park of about 33 hectares in Daliutun town, north of Xinmin, begun in 1997 and designated a national agri-tourism demonstration site.
• Shenyang Aisin-Gioro Royal Museum 沈阳爱新觉罗皇家博物院 4A scenic area · on the map
  A Manchu-themed museum and liquor-making complex of about 80,000 square metres at Banlashan village in Faku county, north of Shenyang, run by the Aisin-Gioro Zujiafang liquor company.
• Shenyang Fantawild Adventure 沈阳方特欢乐世界 4A scenic area · on the map
  A theme park in Shenbei New District, on about 50 hectares, run by the Chinese theme-park chain Fantawild and opened in 2011.
• Shenyang Forest Zoo 沈阳森林动物园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A zoo in the forested Qipanshan hills on the eastern edge of Shenyang, which moved here from the old city-centre zoo and opened in 1999 as the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo.
• Shenyang Guaipo (Strange Slope) 沈阳怪坡 4A scenic area · on the map
  A scenic area in Shenbei New District best known for the Strange Slope, a short stretch of road about 80 m long where cars left in neutral appear to roll uphill by themselves.
• Shenyang Korean War Martyrs' Cemetery 沈阳抗美援朝烈士陵园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A memorial cemetery east of Beiling Park, built in 1951 for soldiers of the Chinese People's Volunteers who died in the Korean War.
• Shenyang Railway Museum 沈阳铁路陈列馆 4A scenic area
  A railway museum on an 80,000-square-metre site in Sujiatun district, with some 800 pieces of railway equipment, including dozens of locomotives, and more than 1,500 historical photographs.
• Shenyang Science Palace 沈阳科学宫 4A scenic area · on the map
  A science education centre in south-eastern Shenyang (Shenhe district) that opened in June 2000.
• Zhao Mausoleum (Beiling Park) 清昭陵（北陵公园） 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  The tomb of Hong Taiji, the first Qing emperor, and Empress Xiaoduanwen, built between 1643 and 1651 and part of the UNESCO-listed Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
• Beidaying Barracks Site 北大营营房旧址 National heritage site · on the map
  Beidaying ('North Barracks') was a Chinese army camp built in 1907 about 5 km north of the old city of Shenyang, and the first place attacked by the Japanese Kwantung Army on the night of 18 September 1931, the start of the Mukden Incident.
• CPC Manchuria Provincial Committee Site 中共满洲省委旧址 National heritage site · on the map
  From 1927 until the Japanese takeover of Shenyang in 1931, this single-storey grey-brick house in the old Beishichang district was the headquarters of the Communist Party's Manchuria Provincial Committee, its organisation for Northeast China.
• Former Liaoning Main Station (Old North Station) 辽宁总站旧址 National heritage site
  A station building completed in 1930 and opened in 1931, designed by the architect Yang Tingbao, which served as Shenyang North Station until a new station replaced it in 1988.
• Hoten Camp (Allied POW Camp Site) 沈阳二战盟军战俘营旧址 National heritage site
  Between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese army held more than 2,000 Allied prisoners of war at Mukden, now Shenyang, latterly in this purpose-built camp on the east side of the city; they came from the United States, Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and other countries, and were put to work in a nearby machinery factory.
• Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral, Shenyang 沈阳天主堂 National heritage site
  The Catholic cathedral of Shenyang, a brick Gothic Revival church with two towers about 40 m high and a large rose window above the entrance.
• Shenyang Station and Former Mukden Railway Buildings 沈阳站（奉天驿旧址） National heritage site
  Shenyang's main railway station still uses the red-brick east building that the South Manchuria Railway opened in 1910 as Mukden Station, with white mouldings and three green metal domes, designed by two pupils of the Japanese architect Tatsuno Kingo.
• Shenyang War Crimes Tribunal Site (1956) 审判日本战犯特别军事法庭旧址 National heritage site · on the map
  A two-storey Chinese-style building with a golden glazed-tile roof, where in 1956 a special military tribunal of the Supreme People's Court tried Japanese war criminals; trials were held at Shenyang and at Taiyuan, with 45 defendants in all.
• Tawan Sarira Pagoda (Wugou Jingguang Pagoda) 无垢净光舍利塔 National heritage site
  A 13-tier octagonal brick pagoda more than 30 m high, built in 1044 in the Liao dynasty and repaired in the 1640s, with a Buddha niche on each face; it was the pagoda in 'Evening Glow at Tawan', one of the old Eight Views of Shenyang.
• Xibe Ancestral Temple (Taiping Temple) 锡伯族家庙 National heritage site
  A Tibetan Buddhist (Gelug) temple founded in 1707 as the family temple of the Xibe people stationed in Mukden, and the place where Xibe soldiers and their families gathered in 1764 before the move west to Ili, which the Xibe still mark as the Westward Migration Festival.
• Xinle Site Museum 新乐遗址博物馆 National heritage site
  A museum on the site of a Neolithic village of the Xinle culture, found in 1973 on a terrace of the old Hun River course in the north of Shenyang and dated to more than 7,000 years ago.
• Yong'an Stone Bridge 永安石桥 National heritage site · on the map
  A stone arch bridge 37 m long, built in 1641 in the Chongde reign of Hong Taiji, which spans an old course of the Pu River at Yong'an village on the north-western edge of Shenyang.
• Zhongshan Square Historic Buildings, Shenyang 沈阳中山广场建筑群 National heritage site · on the map
  A round civic square laid out in 1913 in the Japanese-run railway zone of old Mukden, surrounded by bank, hotel and office buildings put up by Japanese architects, mostly in the 1920s and 1930s.

Getting to Shenyang

Train, flight and driving times from the cities most visitors come from, with stations, fares and how many run a day; each opens the full comparison.

• Dalian 大连 high-speed train 1 h 25 min, 65 a day, from ¥156
• Erdaobaihe 二道白河 high-speed train 1 h 53 min, 15 a day, from ¥275
• Qinhuangdao 秦皇岛 high-speed train 2 h 30 min, 67 a day, from ¥131
• Chengde 承德 high-speed train 1 h 46 min, 22 a day, from ¥194
• Harbin 哈尔滨 high-speed train 2 h 1 min, 86 a day, from ¥279
• Yantai 烟台 high-speed train 8 h 56 min, 2 a day, from ¥684; 2 nonstop flights a day, 1 h 25 min in the air
• Mudanjiang 牡丹江 high-speed train 3 h 42 min, 16 a day, from ¥363
• Tianjin 天津 high-speed train 3 h 42 min, 78 a day, from ¥264
• Qingdao 青岛 high-speed train 7 h 54 min, 7 a day, from ¥554; 10 nonstop flights a day, 1 h 35 min in the air
• Hailar 海拉尔 train 17 h 21 min, 3 a day, from ¥157; one nonstop flight a day, 2 h in the air

Where you can get to from Shenyang in a day · All routes

On the map

Open Shenyang on the illustrated map to see its outline, its places and listed sites together, and to add them to a trip.

Learn more

• Wikipedia
• Official website
• Wikipedia (Chinese)