During the period from 1557 to 1999, various foreign foreign countries had numerous colonial possessions or concessions on Chinese soil. This article attempts to explore the legacy of colonial rule in China, and provide a list of destinations were one can still see remnants of that colonial legacy. The official party line in China talks of a "Century of Humiliation" (百年国耻), beginning with the Qing Dynasty's defeat at the hands of the British in the First Opium War in 1941, and ending with the rise of a "new China" under communist rule in 1949.

The first foreign colonial possession in China was the Portuguese colony of Macau, as the Ming Dynasty granted Portugal the right to establish a trading post there in 1557 in exchange for help in combatting piracy.