Green city on the Vietnam border — Zhuang culture and subtropical karst at China's southern gate
Nanning is the subtropical capital of Guangxi, China's largest ethnic minority autonomous region, home to the Zhuang people who form the country's biggest ethnic minority group. The city is aggressively green — officially dubbed the 'Green City' — with banyan-shaded boulevards and a riverside promenade. It's a logical base for Detian Waterfall (one of Asia's largest transnational waterfalls, straddling Vietnam), the Zuojiang karst cliff paintings (UNESCO, 2,000-year-old bronze age rock art), and the Beibu Gulf coast.
Nanning has been inhabited since the Neolithic and was a garrison town from the Han Dynasty onwards, controlling the southern route towards Vietnam. It became capital of Guangxi province in 1914. The city was a significant rear base during the Second Indochina War, with Vietnamese communist troops transiting through regularly. The surrounding Guangxi region contains some of China's finest Bronze Age cultural evidence: the Zuojiang rock paintings near the Vietnamese border, depicting elaborate ritual scenes, were painted between the 4th century BCE and 2nd century CE.