You’ll have to be a bit more specific. China is a huge country. Parts of it are in the tropics and parts are fairly close to the arctic circle. There are deserts, Himalayan mountains, tropical coastlines, plains, and everything in between.

Much like here in the US, it depends on where you are geographically.

In the north I understand it can be pretty brutally cold. In the south it’s always warm/more temperate.

I was in Southern China (Hong Kong)in early November and it was beautiful every day. I was also there in June and…well it was just miserable with heat and humidity.

Not sure if that helps.

anders has it right, starryeyes, consider this – at its furthest points, you’d probably be flying 5 or 6 hours to get across the country. where i lived for the last year, in the northwest province of xinjiang, temperatures varied from -15C in winter (a mild winter, note they can get to -30C) to +35C in summer (again mild, could be more than +40C). shanghai would be about 40C in summer but over 90% humid which is horrible, in winter stays above zero mostly BUT still humid so it’s a very wet cold and quite miserable. same goes for beijing and probably a lot of the coast really! down south in hainan (a chinese island off the south of china) temp remains mostly the same all year (definitely above zero though, often in the “nicely warm” region of temperatures unlike the other places i mentioned) but there’s often flooding in the winter rains.

your best bet? – go online, search for your location’s average weather stats, using google, and use a few different websites’ results to collate an idea of what it will be like in your region / city.

Yep… ditto on other answers… it depends on where you go… North can be bitter cold, south can be hot.

Northeast China where I lived got down to -20 degrees (around that temp, the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales cross, so it’s the same on both scales). In Mongolia, I had a friend who spit and the spit froze before it hit the ground. That’s cold.

But further south, near Hong Kong or even in Shanghai it will be much warmer. What city are you going to?

Ditto big country ….

But without knowing where you’re going I’d still suggest take warm clothes it’s mild to strong winter but also you can buy whatever you need so just have clothes for when you land and till you can shop :)

have fun

yep, more details needed…lived in beijing and shanghai the last seven years and i can tell you that in both places, it’s freaking cold at that time of year…

beijing because of the wind (-20 with wind chill), and shanghai because of the lack of central heating in most buildings that aren’t five star hotels or residences, or A class office buildings…

all cities north of the yellow river have centralized municipal heating systems for buildings, while all cities south of the yellow river are considered to be in a warm climate and thus don’t have centralized heat…

in short, its freaking cold in the north if you go outdoors…and it’s freaking cold if you stay indoors in many places in central china…

I went to Hong Kong. It was humid. I am only 5’4" but I felt tall over there. When I was on the Star Ferry young children kept touching my bleached blonde (I was blonde back then) hair. I made a friend that was a bartender. She was amazed that I owned my own business and could walk the streets like I did. Now that I am older I am amazed that I did that myself. The “black market” is alive and well over there. There is nothing like youth to make you feel invincible. She lived in a two bedroom apartment with her 13 relatives. I was there once before they reverted back to China and once after they reverted back. The difference I noticed was the army walking the streets after they reverted to China and that the government was involved in everything. The thing I found interesting is that the “lease” was made with traditional China which was chased by communist china over to … I am drawing a blank now (is it Taiwan? It’s been so long ago… Shouldn’t have Hong Kong gone back to them? They are the ones who made the lease.) The thing I remember the most was that as a woman in business I used to bitch and moan about how hard it was for women to do business in America because it was such a man’s world. When I got back from Hong Kong, where the man I was doing business with had his wife bring his mistress to the airport to join him on the business trip he was on with me, and that the women I ran into could not believe that I owned my own business, I kissed the ground I landed on and gave thanks that I was an American and had the right to make a living as I saw fit for my family. It is my prayer that my children (boys and girls) get to experience the same rights that I did. After reading the new health bill (everyone should do that before they vote on it)I am worried that the government will have more to say about that then they will.

If you’re going in the winter, check for timing on the Harbin Ice Festival. It’s a trek from Beijing but something you’ll have to see with your own eyes to believe.