Traffic in China is fairly evenly spread: Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) alone handles about 76.8 million passengers a year, roughly 24% of the 318 million across the 7 airports listed here. Several airports carry meaningful traffic rather than one gateway taking everything, which usually means strong regional demand rather than pure connecting traffic.
Between them these airports operate 20 runways serving 6 cities, and the country spans 2 time zones, so a domestic flight here can change your watch. The highest field is Kunming Changshui International Airport at 6,903 ft, where thinner air lengthens the takeoff run. Every airport below links to a live map of aircraft observed within available ADS-B coverage around the field.
The next airport in the ranking is Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN) at about 76.4 million passengers. The gap to PVG is 0.4 million, while the three busiest airports account for roughly 69% of traffic represented by this list. That leaves a long tail of smaller gateways with a meaningful regional role.
The airports are spread across roughly 18 degrees of latitude and 33 degrees of longitude. That geographic spread makes weather, daylight and local operating conditions materially different across the same national network. Field elevations span 6,893 ft, so crews can move between very different takeoff-performance conditions. The average across this selected set is 2.9 runways per airport.
Read airport by airport, the selected China network is not interchangeable: Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) has 5 runways and about 76.8 million annual passengers, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN) has 3 runways and about 76.4 million annual passengers, Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) has 3 runways and about 67.4 million annual passengers, Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) has 3 runways and about 53.1 million annual passengers, Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA) has 2 runways and about 44.0 million annual passengers, Xigaze Peace Airport / Shigatse Air Base (RKZ) has 2 runways and no comparable traffic figure and Kunming Changshui International Airport (KMG) has 2 runways and no comparable traffic figure. Those differences matter when comparing a live map. A larger passenger total indicates schedule scale, while runway count describes physical layout; neither number by itself proves how delayed, connected or operationally efficient an airport will be on a particular day.