Hunan
Hunan, a mountainous province in southern China, was the early home of Communist leader Mao Zedong. The village of Shaoshan, where Mao was born in 1893, welcomes visitors to his mud-brick childhood house and the Mao Zedong Memorial Museum. In northwestern Hunan, the Wulingyuan Scenic Area is distinguished by thousands of quartzite sandstone columns, as well as caves, waterfalls and endangered wildlife.