Changchun Longjia International Airport — Changchun, China

Changchun's modern airport serves a city whose broad, tree-lined boulevards still hint at its earlier role as Hsinking, the planned capital that Japan built for its Manchukuo puppet state during the occupation of northeastern China in the 1930s and 1940s, a history the city has largely built over but never entirely erased. In the decades after 1949, Changchun reinvented itself as the birthplace of China's automotive industry, home to First Automobile Works and the Red Flag limousine brand once reserved for top Communist Party leadership, and the airport today carries heavy traffic tied to that manufacturing base along with the region's film studios and universities. Winters here rank among the coldest of any major Chinese city, with runway and de-icing operations a routine part of the airport's cold-season procedures. Domestic routes link Changchun to Beijing, Shanghai, and other major hubs, while the airport increasingly handles cargo tied to automotive parts and the wider industrial output of Jilin province.