Eight Cuisine in China

In general, Chinese food has 8 main branches. They are Yue, Chuan, Su, Zhe, Min, Xiang, Hui, Lu, and they are completely different whit each other.

The following link is a brief introduce of the classification of Chinese food:
Chinese 8 Great Cuisines

The reasons why those cuisines have such big differences is mainly because the geographical factor. Such as the Chuan cuisine, Sichuan province is located at a huge basin, the climate there is very wet in almost whole year, and in winter the weather become cold and wet. Therefor, hot and spicy food become essential at Sichuan province.

There still some other element which can influence the flavor of Cuisines. For example, human's trading activity. Yue cuisine comes from Guangdong province, and for hundreds of years, Guangdong is the commercial center of south China. For this reason, people who lived in Guangdong got chance to use all kind of ingredients. Therefor, Yue cuisine is the most various cuisine in the China.