China is the third largest country in the world (after Russia and Canada) and is also home to the oldest continuous civilisation the world has ever seen, dating back between four and five thousand years. It's hardly surprising, then, that at 43 (and counting) China has the third highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites of any country, coming just behind Italy at 47 and Spain at 44 - a figure that will certainly continue to rise.

Even as things stand at present, there are an immense amount of UNESCO-recognised sites scattered across this vast land - and believe us, it takes a lot of time and a great deal of effort to document and photograph them. Once again, then, it's hardly surprising that there are gaps in our coverage - but we're working assiduously to correct this.

For the present, our coverage includes Beijing's Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and - just outside the city - the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall (which stretches all the way to Jiayuguan in the far west). Then there's the Terracotta Army at Xi'an, the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, the former Qing Summer Capital at Chengde, Mount Emei and Leishan, as well as the West Lake of Hangzhou, the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, the Ming Tombs at Nanjing, the Mount Emei Scenic Area and the Giant Buddha at Leishan.

To this we have added the Old Town of Lijiang, the Dazu Rock Carvings, the Upper Yangzi at Tiger Leaping Gorge, the Historic Centre of Macau, the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, the South China Karsts of Yunnan and Guizhou, the Tulou Round Houses of Fujian and the Kaiping Diaolou Watchtowers of Guangdong.

Not bad, we hope you will agree, and we are working to extend our coverage to all UNESCO sites in China. The only problem is that the list is certain to continue growing, so the task may take some considerable time to complete!

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