🇨🇳 Airports in China

About China

The capital is Beijing, the population is around 1.41 billion, the country sits in Eastern Asia. See the fact box for currency, languages and dialling code, then scroll on for the airport list.

Overview

China is served by 74 airports tracked in this guide, across 72 cities and metropolitan areas. The most-connected fields include Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN), Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CTU), Xi'an Xianyang International Airport (XIY), which together carry the bulk of international traffic in and out of the country. Each one has its own page on this site with a full breakdown of the terminal layout, lounge options, layover plans and ground transport into town.

Air travel in China

Air travel across China follows a familiar pattern: a small number of large gateway airports do most of the heavy lifting, and a long tail of regional and secondary fields handles everything else. Gateway airports concentrate long-haul international flights, premium lounges and the widest connection banks for partner alliances. Regional airports run shorter, point-to-point services that link domestic cities and feed traffic into the larger hubs. If you fly into the country regularly, you will find yourself returning to the same handful of gateways, with the regional fields filling in the trips you take a few times a year.

Planning your trip

When you plan a trip into or through China, start by matching the city you actually need to reach to the closest airport on the list below. People transiting between continents usually route through one of the top-ranked gateways. People visiting smaller cities often fly the long-haul leg into a primary airport and then take a short connecting flight, train or coach to the final destination. Read the schedule carefully if you are routing on more than one ticket, because a missed connection on separate tickets is your problem to solve, not the airline's.

Arrivals tips

On the ground, expect English to be widely spoken at major airports, with bilingual signage at international gateways. Currency exchange, SIM-card vendors, ride-hail pickup zones and licensed taxi ranks are usually clustered in the arrivals concourse. For an overnight transit, look at airport-area hotels with a shuttle rather than a city-centre hotel. The longer transfer can easily eat the savings, and an early-morning departure is much easier to make from a hotel a few minutes from the terminal.

Reading airport codes

A practical note on naming. Airports in China appear in booking systems by their three-letter IATA code, and on flight-tracking sites by their four-letter ICAO code. The IATA code is what shows up on your boarding pass and luggage tag. When two airports serve the same city, the codes are how you tell them apart. Always double-check the code on your ticket before you head to the airport, because a wrong-airport drop-off in a large city can cost you the flight.

All airports in China