# Chinese regional map

The Eight Great Cuisines are Shandong, Sichuan, Cantonese/Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, and Anhui. They are useful shorthand, not a complete taxonomy.

**Shandong / Lu**: savory, precise, technique-driven; wheat, seafood, broths, vinegar, scallion, and imperial influence. It shaped Beijing and court cooking.

**Cantonese / Guangdong**: fresh ingredients, seafood, steaming, quick stir-fry, restrained seasoning, texture, soups, roast meats, dim sum. Oyster sauce and light seasoning belong here, but not every Cantonese dish is glossy takeout sauce.

**Sichuan**: see `../sichuan/overview.md` and the Sichuan deeper references.

**Hunan**: fresh and pickled chiles, smoke, cured meats, sourness, and direct heat. Often perceived as hotter than Sichuan, but not always; the key distinction is less numbing peppercorn and more clean chile/sour/smoked force.

**Jiangsu / Zhejiang / Shanghai-Jiangnan**: lower-Yangtze refinement, sweetness, rice wine, seafood, river fish, red-cooking, delicate knife work, soups, and braises. Shanghai is one city in a broader Jiangnan world.

**Fujian / Min and Teochew/Chaozhou**: seafood, soups, broths, lightness, fermented and preserved ingredients, tea culture, and diaspora influence across Southeast Asia. Teochew often values clarity and freshness.

**Anhui**: mountain ingredients, wild herbs, preserved foods, stewing and braising. Often omitted in short overviews; don't pretend the big restaurant styles cover it.

**Beijing / northern / wheat belt**: noodles, dumplings, breads, pancakes, lamb in Muslim and Inner-Mongolian-influenced contexts, soybean paste, vinegar, and robust braises.

**Xi'an / Shaanxi**: wheat noodles, flatbreads, lamb, cumin, vinegar, chile oil, and Muslim-quarter foodways.

**Yunnan / Guizhou**: mushrooms, herbs, flowers, cured meats, sour and chile-driven traditions, ethnic diversity, rice noodles. Good reminder that "Chinese" isn't only Han coastal/eastern cooking.

**Xinjiang / Uyghur and other northwest halal traditions**: lamb, cumin, hand-pulled noodles, flatbreads, pilaf/polo, skewers, dairy, dried fruit, and Silk Road/Central Asian influences.