Orientation

Our travels will take us to Shanghai, Suzhou, Xi'an, and Beijing. Google Maps is a good place to get an idea of where these cities are in China.

You'll have to zoom in once to find Xi'an, located in central China, and zoom in twice to find Suzhou (just west of Shanghai).

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=China&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.793449,107.138672&oq=China&hnear=China&t=m&z=4

Shanghai is the world's most populous city with 17,836,133 people. This doesn't take into account the city's suburbs. The area the city covers is 2605.8 kilometers or 1619.16 miles, which is hard to get your head around. You can double check my conversion.

http://www.metric-conversions.org/