China Untold — Stories of China, Told Properly

China Untold tells the stories of China — its history, landscapes, cities and everyday culture — for readers and viewers around the world. Every episode starts from primary and authoritative sources, and every name, date and place is checked before publication. No legends dressed up as facts: where a story is a legend, we say so.

Read

Long-form stories, written to be read — with the maps, photographs and background the videos cannot hold:

• Zhu Yuanzhang: How a Beggar Became Emperor of China — a famine orphan who buried his family in borrowed ground went on to found the Ming dynasty.
• Dujiangyan: The 2,000-Year-Old Dam That Isn't a Dam — the irrigation system of 256 BC that still waters the Chengdu plain today, with no dam at all.
• The Terracotta Army: Facts Behind China's Clay Soldiers — what the 8,000 warriors actually are, and what they are not.

More stories are published in the China Untold column.

Watch

Each story is also produced as a narrated video episode on the China Untold YouTube channel — launching shortly. The channel opens with the first six episodes: Zhu Yuanzhang, Dujiangyan, the Terracotta Army, Zhangjiajie, Harbin and Chongqing.

Listen

An audio edition of every episode is in production for podcast feeds, so the stories can travel with you.

How we work

Research first, storytelling second. Facts are graded by source — UNESCO, Encyclopaedia Britannica, museums and academic publications outrank everything else — and disputed claims are either left out or openly marked as debated. History coverage ends with the Qing dynasty; modern episodes cover geography, engineering, architecture and living culture.

China Untold is produced by the team behind Dajia Picks. A companion app is in preparation.