World-class country:
China holds many records, including the Forbidden
City – officially the biggest
palace on the planet
After millennia of innovations, firsts and record breakers, famously including the world’s longest wall and the world’s largest high-speed rail system, China remains underrepresented in the repository of all that is greatest and best: Guinness World Records.
Despite receiving almost a thousand queries a week, Guinness global president Alistair Richards reports barely 1,500 applications arrive from China annually, of which around 300 are added to the database.
“The truth is that we need many more record claims and enquiries from China,” Richards told the Xinhua news service. “We are determined to have many more records by the Chinese in our database, and this is why we now have an office in Beijing.”
This “China Pride” move might also be a record bid in itself. Guinness World Records was once the bestselling regularly updated book in the world, but has since been overtaken by the Xinhua Chinese dictionary.
“I think it will continue to be a Guinness World Records holder for many years,” conceded Richards. “We want to encourage Chinese people to make record claims, and we are looking forward to witnessing more and more ‘China Prides’.” Here are just a few
of the Chinese achievements that have already made it into
Guinness World Records.
As representatives from Guinness World Records call on China to shout about more of its innovations and firsts, we explore some of its feats to date…
10 Guinness World Record
Titles of China
China pride
Click here to watch
full videos of all ten records
The world-famous Terracotta Army near the grave of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, continues to grow in size as archaeologists uncover more members. Its defining image is Pit Number One, where 6,000 warriors stand with officers and horses, but the grave site covers 56sq km with thousands of other treasures, including dancers, wrestlers and an animal menagerie.
Burned and looted in the unrest that toppled Qin Shihuang’s heir in 206 BC, the warriors were not rediscovered until 1974. The excavation continues to this day, and is regarded as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
1. LARGEST GROUP OF LIFE-SIZED STATUES
Buried treasures: soldiers from the Terracotta Army are still being discovered by archaeologists today
Blockbuster: last year 42.6 tonnes of pu'er tea were pressed into a single record-breaking block – somewhat bigger than
the regular-sized batch
of pu'er pictured here
In a 2020 bid to promote tourism among the 99 volcanoes and 88 hot springs of Tengchong in China’s south-western province of Yunnan, the local Gaoligong Tea Company pressed the world’s largest block of pu’er tea, 6.04m high, 10.6m round and weighing 42.6 tonnes. A Guinness adjudicator was on hand to pronounce the 37-day venture
a success, telling the locals: “You are officially amazing!”
But despite its immense size, the Tengchong block represents only
a fraction of the tea harvested in the mountainous province, which annually produces 431,000 tonnes, with a retail value of £10 billion.
2. LARGEST COMPRESSED TEA
Giant of science: the Guangdong centre
is the world's biggest science museum
Opened in 2008, the multi-award-winning Guangdong Science Centre is full of interactive games and immersive experiences. Combining nature, technology and art, it looks like a kapok flower from above, while its flanks are conceived as “ships sailing into the future”. The centre is itself an exhibit, showcasing an earthquake-resistant steel-mesh shell, natural ventilation channels and solar power.
The venue covers a floor area of 126,513.58sq m, but is set in
a botanical garden packed with the flora of the Lingnan region.
At 450,000sq m in total, it was rated by Guinness in 2018 as the world’s largest science museum/centre.
3. LARGEST SCIENCE MUSEUM
Spiritual high: the
Giant Buddha of
Leshan dominates
the riverscape below
Created in the 8th century to appease an angry water spirit at the confluence of three rivers in Sichuan province, the Giant Buddha of Leshan was carved out from a sandstone cliff. At 71m it is the largest pre-modern statue in the world, over three stories high. Although it took several decades to carve, sandstone is a relatively soft material, and today it is the subject of an intensive conservation scheme to protect it against the elements.
There are several larger Buddhas, made from modern materials, but Guinness rated Leshan’s as the world’s tallest in stone.
4. TALLEST STONE BUDDHA
It's a rail winner:
Chongqing's Line 3
beat the previous
record-holder in Japan
Opened in 2011, Line 3 of the Chongqing Rail Transit system has since been extended to 67.09km, running past the airport in the north, through the city centre to the southern suburbs. In order to deal with the limited space and up to 100m variation in the hilly terrain, it uses a “straddle-type” monorail system. Earlier Chongqing lines used foreign technology, but Line 3 was a concerted effort to rely on local talent, leading to 100 new patents and a line that outpaced the length of the previous record-holder in Japan. It carries a million passengers a day.
5. LONGEST MONORAIL
Amazing metropolis:
Beijing's enormous
Forbidden City contains almost 1,000 buildings
Originally built in the 1400s, but substantially remodelled during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the palace of the Manchu emperors in Beijing is so large that it is known as the Forbidden City. Boasting 980 buildings and 8,886 rooms, it covers 72 hectares (134 football pitches), and hosted 24 rulers, up to and including the Last Emperor, Puyi.
Today, it is open to the public, and contains a substantial number of all the surviving historic buildings in Beijing, festooned with symbols of imperial power, statues of mythical beasts and grand courtyards. It is also home to Beijing’s two largest stone lions.
6. LARGEST PALACE
Stamp of quality:
the first-class Space
Post Office towers
over Guangzhou
The 600m Canton Tower twists into the sky above the Pearl River in Guangzhou. The Space Post Office on its 107th-floor observation deck is Guinness-certified as the world’s “highest post office in a building”, from which tourists can send postcards. This is presumably some small consolation for losing its earlier status as the tallest building in China, which it held for three brief years before the newly built Shanghai Tower took the title in 2016.
The Canton Tower also boasts the world’s highest outdoor observation deck, although the risk of strong winds means it is “only” 488m up.
7. HIGHEST POST OFFICE IN A BUILDING
A sight to sea: the Hangzhou Bay Bridge spans open water to connect two cities
Traversing 36km of open sea to connect the two coastal cities of Ningbo and Jiaxing, the £860 million Hangzhou Bay Bridge was built to shorten the overland journey from Ningbo to Shanghai by 120km. Engineers were required to aim for a century-long operational life (the first Chinese infrastructure project to include such a demand), amid challenging environmental conditions that led to an S-shaped construction and a service centre at its mid-point, known as “the Land Between the Sea and Sky”. It was opened to the public in 2008, and swiftly secured a Guinness nod, as yet unchallenged.
8. LONGEST BRIDGE SPANNING OPEN SEA
Old-world wisdom: Nanjing's defensive wall was designed to withstand
any siege weapon
Originally intended as the capital of Ming-dynasty China, Nanjing boasted a city wall over 35km in circumference, of which 25.091km
is still standing today. Work began in 1366, two years before the coronation of the Hongwu Emperor, and took 280,000 workers 21 years to complete. Nanjing is noted for rejecting the usual straight lines of Chinese city walls, with battlements that twist and turn through the local terrain. Intended to be resistant to any old-world siege weapon, the Nanjing fortifications saw little action, as the city was superseded in the early 15th century by Beijing in the north.
9. LONGEST ANCIENT CITY WALL
Corridor of power: the Summer Palace’s sheltered walkway articulates
the worldview of the Manchu emperors
Built by the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) as a birthday gift for his mother, Beijing’s Summer Palace was the last of China’s imperial gardens. Its most visible features are the palaces on Longevity Hill, and a majestic 17-arch bridge, but it made its way into Guinness World Records for its 728m Long Corridor, snaking around the edge of Kunming Lake. The sheltered walkway is decorated with 14,000 paintings, turning it into an interactive experience of the Manchu emperors’ worldview, literary interests and historical heroes.
It has been likened to an unfolding scroll, telling the story of thousands of years of Chinese history and culture.
10. LONGEST COVERED WOODEN CORRIDOR
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Jonathan Clements
Blockbuster: last year 42.6 tonnes of pu'er tea were pressed into a single record-breaking block – somewhat bigger than
the regular-sized batch
of pu'er pictured here
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After millennia of innovations, firsts and record breakers, famously including the world’s longest wall and the world’s largest high-speed rail system, China remains underrepresented in the repository of all that is greatest and best: Guinness World Records.
Despite receiving almost a thousand queries a week, Guinness global president Alistair Richards reports barely 1,500 applications arrive from China annually, of which around 300 are added to the database.
“The truth is that we need many more record claims and enquiries from China,” Richards told the Xinhua news service. “We are determined to have many more records by the Chinese in our database, and this is why we now have an office in Beijing.”
This “China Pride” move might also be a record bid in itself. Guinness World Records was once the bestselling regularly updated book in the world, but has since been overtaken by the Xinhua Chinese dictionary.
“I think it will continue to be a Guinness World Records holder for many years,” conceded Richards. “We want to encourage Chinese people to make record claims, and we are looking forward to witnessing more and more ‘China Prides’.” Here are just a few
of the Chinese achievements that have already made it into
Guinness World Records.
Built by the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) as a birthday gift for his mother, Beijing’s Summer Palace was the last of China’s imperial gardens. Its most visible features are the palaces on Longevity Hill, and a majestic 17-arch bridge, but it made its way into Guinness World Records for its 728m Long Corridor, snaking around the edge of Kunming Lake. The sheltered walkway is decorated with 14,000 paintings, turning it into an interactive experience of the Manchu emperors’ worldview, literary interests and historical heroes.
It has been likened to an unfolding scroll, telling the story of thousands of years of Chinese history and culture.
Originally built in the 1400s, but substantially remodelled during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the palace of the Manchu emperors in Beijing is so large that it is known as the Forbidden City. Boasting 980 buildings and 8,886 rooms, it covers 72 hectares (134 football pitches), and hosted 24 rulers, up to and including the Last Emperor, Puyi.
Today, it is open to the public, and contains a substantial number of all the surviving historic buildings in Beijing, festooned with symbols of imperial power, statues of mythical beasts and grand courtyards. It is also home to Beijing’s two largest stone lions.
In a 2020 bid to promote tourism among the 99 volcanoes and 88 hot springs of Tengchong in China’s south-western province of Yunnan, the local Gaoligong Tea Company pressed the world’s largest block of pu’er tea, 6.04m high, 10.6m round and weighing 42.6 tonnes. A Guinness adjudicator was on hand to pronounce the 37-day venture a success, telling the locals: “You are officially amazing!”
But despite its immense size, the Tengchong block represents only a fraction of the tea harvested in the mountainous province, which annually produces 431,000 tonnes, with a retail value of £10 billion.
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