1# Chinese regional map
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 3The Eight Great Cuisines are Shandong, Sichuan, Cantonese/Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, and Anhui. They are useful shorthand, not a complete taxonomy.
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 5**Shandong / Lu**: savory, precise, technique-driven; wheat, seafood, broths, vinegar, scallion, and imperial influence. It shaped Beijing and court cooking.
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 7**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.
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 9**Sichuan**: see `../sichuan/overview.md` and the Sichuan deeper references.
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11**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.
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13**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.
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15**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.
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17**Anhui**: mountain ingredients, wild herbs, preserved foods, stewing and braising. Often omitted in short overviews; don't pretend the big restaurant styles cover it.
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19**Beijing / northern / wheat belt**: noodles, dumplings, breads, pancakes, lamb in Muslim and Inner-Mongolian-influenced contexts, soybean paste, vinegar, and robust braises.
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21**Xi'an / Shaanxi**: wheat noodles, flatbreads, lamb, cumin, vinegar, chile oil, and Muslim-quarter foodways.
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23**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.
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25**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.