Chengdu, China

Population: 9,654,000 (2023 estimate)

Area: 4,788 square miles (12,400 square kilometers)

Founded: fourth century BCE

Chengdu is a city of more than 9.4 million people with an urban area population of more than 9.6 million. It is the sixth-largest city and the seventh-largest urban area in China as well as the thirty-eighth largest urban area in the world, with growth projected to top 11.2 million in 2035. As the capital of the Sichuan province, it is the seat of the provincial government and a center of commerce. It is also a transportation hub, with railways and airports. Industries that benefit the country include chemical plants and engineering facilities that manufacture railway equipment, aircraft, and power machinery. In addition to the traditional textiles manufactured in Chengdu, the city has developed electronic and high-tech industries to meet the modern needs of China’s people. History credits the merchants of Chengdu with introducing paper money in the country. Despite its many attributes, Chengdu is best known as the center of Sichuan cuisine and the home of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

Landscape

Chengdu is located in central Sichuan on the Chengdu Plain. This is an alluvial plain, which is a gently sloping plain composed of sediment deposits laid down by streams. This plain is known for its fertile soil and ancient irrigation system, Dujiangyan, which dates to 220 BCE. Begun in 200 BCE, it diverts half the water from the Min River throughout the plain’s farmlands by way of an extensive network of channels. This combination of attributes contributed to the region’s more than two-thousand-year history as an agricultural area.

The climate in the city is warm and temperate, with an average temperature of about 62 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius). The warmest month, July, averages about 78 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius), while January is the coolest month, with an average temperature of about 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius). Summers are typically wetter than winters. December is the driest month, with only about 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) of rain on average. The wettest month, July, averages 9.4 inches (240 millimeters) of precipitation.

The central city district is 231 square miles (598 square kilometers). The average altitude of the city is 1,640 feet (500 meters) above sea level. As is true of much of the Chengdu Plain, several waterways meander through the city center and its many districts. Some waterways are lined with public green spaces and attractions. For example, the Funanhe Living Water Park is located on the bank of the Fuhe River.

People

Of the fifty-six ethnic minority groups in China, fifty-four are represented in Chengdu. The largest ethnic group is Han. The city is also home to a large Tibetan population of about thirty thousand permanent residents. The large number of colleges and universities also draws people from around the country.

Chinese folk religions, Chinese Buddhism, and Taoism are the most commonly practiced religions. Less than 1 percent of the population identifies as Christian. Sichuanese Mandarin is the primary language of Chengdu and the province.

An estimated one million people referred to as the floating population also live in the city and its metro area. These are mostly rural poor who work as manual laborers. Many live in rented properties that lack public sewage and water connections. While some are temporary residents of Chengdu, others have moved permanently from their villages. Many do not have established residency status and therefore cannot access social services including education and health care.

Economy

The main industries of Chengdu are chemicals, electronics, food, light textiles, machinery, metallurgy, and pharmaceuticals. The service sector consists largely of communications, finance, insurance, real estate, technical services, tourism, and transportation.

The oldest industry of Chengdu remains a highly important contributor to the economy. Textile mills have been producing silks for centuries. Cotton and woolen textiles have become important products in modern times.

Electronics, energy, finance, information technology (IT), modern agriculture, modern logistics and trade, and software are among the most important industries of Chengdu. More than two-hundred-and-fifty Fortune 500 companies have branches in the city’s four industrial zones. Chengdu is a commercial, communications, educational, financial, scientific, technological, trade, and transportation hub, all of which makes it significant to Western China. The city has benefited from the Chinese government’s push to move industry into rural areas where labor is plentiful and establish technology industries. This growth of industry has drawn educated and skilled workers to Chengdu, and the government has constructed an expansive industrial park nearby.

Soviet assistance during the 1950s allowed China to construct radio and electronics plants at Chengdu. Other projects include the establishment of precision-tool and measuring instrument manufacturing for southwestern China’s market and engineering facilities to support infrastructure by manufacturing aircraft, power machinery, and railway equipment.

Chengdu is also a critical manufacturing center for chemicals. It is home to many factories that produce industrial chemicals, pharmaceutical products, and fertilizers.

Landmarks

In 2000 the Dujiangyan irrigation system and Mount Qingcheng together were designated a United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. The latter is one of the early sites of Daoism. The city has been known as a cultural center of China for centuries, and many historic sites draw tourists from across the country and abroad.

An important cultural center is the cottage of Du Fu (712–770 CE), a writer who is China’s most famous poet of the Tang era. He lived in a hut in Chengdu for several years, writing more than two hundred poems. While only remnants of the original structure have been located, a one-thousand-year-old temple stands in the park on the site. Du Fu’s Thatched Cottage, a refurbished structure that is hundreds of years old, is furnished in the style typical of the poet’s lifetime. The park in which it stands contains beautiful gardens and other features, including the Fan’an Temple.

The city and region are home to many colleges and universities. Chief among them is Sichuan University, which dates to 1905. Other institutions specialize in economics, geology, medicine, and science. The city also boasts several technical schools, some of which are connected to the electronics industry. A minorities institute serves the Tibetan community.

The most famous natives of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces are giant pandas. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was established to help the mammals, which are found naturally in only these three provinces. About 70 percent of the two thousand remaining giant pandas live in Sichuan province. The 92-acre site includes habitats designed to reflect the natural environment of the pandas as well as other rare and endangered animals, including lesser pandas. The research facility grounds include gardens for visitors to enjoy, as well as ten-thousand clumps of bamboos and other plants to feed the animals. A Giant Panda Museum educates the public about the giant panda and work done to protect it. At times reservations may be made for a chance to hold a giant panda cub.

Kuanzhai Xiangzi, or Wide and Narrow Alley, is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. It consists of three parallel alleys—Wide Alley, Narrow Alley, and Well Alley—and forty-five courtyards. This neighborhood was once a city within Chengdu where troops were quartered. The decayed area was renovated from 2003 to 2008 to be a tourist attraction. The area features many dining and drinking establishments, shops, and historic buildings.

History

The Chengdu region has been inhabited for thousands of years, including prehistory, according to researchers. The many waterways of the plain, including the Yangtze, Min, and Tuo rivers, provided natural travel routes across and beyond the Sichuan Basin.

The city was reportedly founded in about the fourth century BCE; it is believed that the Qin settled there before gaining power over all of China in the third century BCE. The Qin established and named the Chengdu County. The city was the local seat of leadership under the Qin and remained so as the command center of the Shu state under the Han dynasty. When Shu became an independent dynasty, Chengdu served as its capital.

The city’s name was changed to Yizhou under the Tang dynasty, which ruled from 618 to 907. Though it was downgraded to a secondary capital during the late eighth century, after the Tang dynasty it was the capital of two independent governments. These regimes, which were in power from 907 to 965, greatly increased the importance of the city. It became a cultural center and was known for luxury and fine goods, including textiles such as brocades and satins.

Chengdu became the capital of the state of Sichuan in 1368 and remains so in modern times. Many residents of the city were reportedly killed and others fled during the seventeenth century, when Zhang Xianzhong established the Daxi Kingdom. Many settled in areas controlled by the Qing dynasty, which continued to expand its influence until it ruled all of China. Qing was the last dynasty and remained in power until it was overthrown in 1911 by the Wuchang Uprising.

During World War II (1939–1945), Japan invaded eastern China. The Chinese government and many refugees fled to Chengdu, where a large number remained. These newcomers included academics and business owners, who brought entrepreneurial spirit to the city. The influx prompted increased commerce and trade. The growth of the city and the presence of many educated Chinese led many universities to relocate to Chengdu, further increasing the city’s attraction for newcomers.

Chengdu grew even more quickly after World War II. A thermal power-generating station was built in the 1950s and other industrial facilities followed. Railways connected the city to Chongqing, Baoji, and Xi’an during the 1950s, and further construction added routes to Kunming and Xiangfan by the late 1970s. Highway construction increased transportation of people and goods, with roads in all directions radiating from the city. Express highways to Shanghai and Chongqing make traveling easy, as does the nearby international airport.

Some rural migrants moved during the 1970s to the banks of the Fu and Nan rivers. At that time, the rivers marked the boundaries of the city. These newcomers built shanties and found low-paying jobs. As the unsanitary settlement grew, it became an overcrowded slum. Eventually the city expanded beyond the rivers around the slum, incorporating it within the urban area. The end of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which had forced many people into the countryside to work, led to the return to Chengdu of young adults with few skills. The government constructed small factories and simple houses along the river to give them food and shelter. By 1995, more than one hundred thousand people lived in these riverbank communities. They had lower levels of education and lower incomes than average residents of Chengdu. The city government instituted new housing and resettlement policies and cleared out the shanties and simple houses. Other communities in the historic center city neighborhoods had also become slums, with overcrowding and unhygienic conditions, and were removed as well.

Starting in the late twentieth century, China implemented new policies that improved infrastructure, including transportation systems, to increase interest in second-tier cities. Many of these cities had enormous populations in their metropolitan area. Chinese residents were increasingly interested in moving to urban areas, and this infrastructure investment proved to be a boon to the second-tier cities, such as Chengdu. Construction began on a new subway system in the twenty-first century.

By the 2010s, the metro region’s population had increased to the point that the agricultural output was no longer sufficient to allow grain export, and for the first time, Chengdu became an importer of grain. Further contributing to the growth of the population is the presence of the region’s military headquarters.

During the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Chinese government authorities instituted a zero-COVID policy and imposed strict quarantine measures on cities around China in response to upticks in COVID infections. In early September 2022, the authorities placed parts of Chengdu in a strict lockdown, which lasted for several weeks—even after a deadly, 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck nearby and killed dozens of people in Sichuan. Residents of Chengdu and other large Chinese cities protested zero-COVID lockdowns in November of that year and by early December, the government ended the policy.

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