郑州
Zhengzhou
Most visitors change trains in Zhengzhou without leaving the station. Stay a day and you get one of the country's best provincial museums, 3,600-year-old earth walls running through the middle of town, and the Songshan monuments ninety minutes south-west.
At a glance
- Stay
- 2–2 days
- Best seasons
- Apr–May, Sep–Oct
- Airports
- Rail or road access
- Region
- Central China
China Unhurried editorial team · Owner-authored
Places to begin
Make the city tangible.
登封·嵩山
Dengfeng: Shaolin and the Songshan monuments
Eight UNESCO-listed sites scattered around one mountain, ninety minutes south-west. Shaolin is only the loudest of them.
二七纪念塔·德化街
Erqi Tower and Dehua Street
The city's landmark — two joined pentagonal towers from 1971 — above a shopping street that has been here since 1905.
河南博物院
Henan Museum
The province that held most of ancient China's capitals, in one pyramid-shaped building. Free, and worth half a day.
郑州商城·商都遗址博物院
Shang City walls and the Shangdu Museum
Seven kilometres of rammed earth from about 1600 BC, still standing in the middle of the city, with a museum built against them.
黄河文化公园
Yellow River Cultural Park
Where the river leaves the hills and starts running above the plain, with two emperors carved into a mountainside.
郑州城隍庙
Zhengzhou City God Temple
A Ming temple founded in the 1300s, the best old timber in a city that lost most of it. Free.
City essentials
The practical details, when you need them.
Places and local food come first. Open these notes for context, arrival and neighbourhood advice.
Overview+
SHANXIJIANGSUANHUISHANDONGHUBEISHAANXIZhengzhou
Zhengzhou is young as Chinese cities go. It was a county town until the Beijing–Hankou and Longhai railways crossed here in the 1900s, and everything since — the provincial capital, twelve million people, the glass towers east of the centre — grew out of that junction.
The ground under it is much older. A Shang capital stood here from about 1600 BC and left rammed-earth walls eight metres high and seven kilometres around; they run through the Guancheng district as a long green ridge with a park on top and traffic on both sides. The Henan Museum, an hour's walk north, holds what the whole province has dug up: bone flutes nine thousand years old that still play, the Fu Hao owl vessel, a Spring and Autumn bronze pot with a crane on the lid.
Most people treat the city as a base. Dengfeng and the Songshan monuments are ninety minutes south-west, Kaifeng twenty minutes east, Luoyang forty minutes west. Two days is enough, and the museum deserves half of one.
Getting there+
**Zhengzhou East** (郑州东) is one of the country's busiest stations, where the Beijing–Guangzhou and Xuzhou–Lanzhou high-speed lines cross: Beijing and Xi'an two to two and a half hours, Wuhan two, Shanghai four, Luoyang 40 minutes, Kaifeng 20. The older **Zhengzhou** station, on metro lines 1 and 10, is better placed for the old centre and slower trains. **Xinzheng (CGO)** is 19 minutes from Zhengzhou East on the airport intercity train, or an hour by metro line 2 running through to the Chengjiao line.
**Rail tip.** Your passport is your ticket. Book on 12306 or [Trip.com](/go/trip?to=trains&from=city-rail), then go straight to the gate. See [Getting around](/guides/getting-around). The Trip.com link earns us a small commission at no cost to you ([how that works](/about#affiliate)).
**Stay online.** Google, WhatsApp and Instagram are blocked on Chinese networks; a travel eSIM that roams gets around it. Install one before you fly — [Saily](/go/saily?from=city-esim) takes US$5 off a first plan with the code **CHINA**. See [Staying online](/guides/staying-online). The code earns us the same amount in Saily credits, at no cost to you ([how that works](/about#affiliate)).
Where to stay+
Erqi and the old centre
二七·老城
Around the Erqi tower and Dehua Street, with the old railway station a few blocks west.
The densest part of the city and the easiest without a car: metro lines 1 and 3 meet under Erqi Square, the Shang walls are twenty minutes' walk east, and the noodle houses are all here. Hotels run from railway-station cheap to mid-range business.
first visitfoodwalking
Zhengdong New District
郑东新区
The CBD around Ruyi Lake and Zhengzhou East station. Wide, new and efficient.
Business hotels within walking distance of the high-speed station, which matters if you are here to change trains or leaving early for the airport. Little street life; metro line 1 takes twenty minutes back to the centre.
transitconvenience
Jinshui
金水
North of the centre, around the Henan Museum and the tree-lined avenues. Quieter.
Residential blocks, parks and the city's older embassy-era hotels. Good if the museum is your reason for coming; Guanhutun on metro line 2 is a ten-minute walk away.
quietmuseumsparks
**Booking.** Compare hotels in Zhengzhou on [Trip.com](/go/trip?to=hotels&city=zhengzhou&from=city-stay), filtered to its China travel essentials list: English-speaking staff, foreign cards, guest rating 8 or higher. See [Where to stay](/guides/where-to-stay). Booking through this link earns us a small commission at no cost to you ([how that works](/about#affiliate)).