China has never been high on my travel wish list for a variety of reasons I won’t bore you with.

And being as inherently aesthetically pleasing as they are, I’m pretty sure that a timelapse video of a donkey’s butt would look great if done correctly.

That said, W-O-W. This 11 minute timelapse video was made by 56 photographers in 49 cities with more than 200,000 photos. We go from urban centers, to villages, to the countryside and back, with tourist and religious sites peppered in there.

Even with a few destinations getting preferential attention, one gets the sense of how staggeringly huge and dense China is as a travel destination. Even if an opportunity to visit arose, I’m not sure I’d even bother without at least a month of in-country time. At least.

One assumes, alas, this material was gathered before the recent Smogcalypse.