Chongqing
Chongqing is a Chinese central city with an area of 82,400 km² and a population of 28.8 million. It is the largest city in the world. However, most of the Chongqing metropolitan area is not an urban area at all, but an extensive rural area. The city itself is rather comparable to an average Russian city in terms of area and population density.
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Highlights
Chongqing differs from other Chinese cities of millionaires in that it lies not on a plain, but on the hills and mountains at the confluence of the Jialingjiang River with the Yangtze. It is known in China as the only major city with no cyclists. The irregular network of streets is oriented along the profile of the slopes and riverbanks. The city center is located on a peninsula 6 km long and 3 km wide, formed at the mouth of the Jialinjiang. Because of the cramped space, the city’s streets are narrow, with large squares and parks being rather the exception. The dark alleyways away from the main thoroughfares, especially in the old (eastern) part of the city center, are typical. They are not beautiful, but very interesting for leisurely tourists.
Chongqing is located 2400 km. from the mouth of the Yangtze River and has long been the gateway of the Red Basin and the province of Sichuan, to which it belongs in cultural terms. Nevertheless, the city had little commercial significance. The situation did not change much when in 1891, under British pressure, the city became a treaty port, which gave it customs and trade privileges for imported goods. It was not until 1935 that the city was electrified. Three years later, however, the national government fled south under Japanese pressure and made Chongqing the Chinese wartime capital. Many times the Japanese bombed the city from the air. People took refuge in bomb shelters set up in the bowels of the mountains. With the government moving to Chongqing, many factories and plants were moved here, laying the foundation for post-war development. After 1949, Chongqing became the center of China’s defense industry. The city began to develop especially dynamically with the beginning of the reform era. At the same time, it benefits significantly from the rich gas and coal deposits in its subordinate territory.
Lohansa Monastery and Business Center
Rock Sculptures
The city’s oldest and most significant sanctuary dates from 1064-1067, when a certain Jung monk commanded the first images of Buddha to be carved into the rock. More than four hundred statuettes of Buddha, boddhisattvas and pious founders are preserved on two rock walls 3.5 m high and 21 and 24 m long, forming a corridor behind the entrance. The monastery was destroyed several times over the centuries and took its present form in 1885, when a monk initiated the rebuilding of the church, which had been in ruins, with donations from the faithful. But all the buildings were burned in an air raid in 1942. The restoration began in 1945. As the city’s main Buddhist monastery the shrine is visited daily by many worshippers. The board of the Chongqing Buddhist Association meets here. The monastery is home to a small number of monks.
Hall of Five Hundred Lochas (Arhats)
The name of the monastery points to its main attraction: the Hall of Five Hundred Lochs. Made of clay, the figures of seated monks above human height–the exact number is five hundred and twenty-four–are arranged in long rows, they appear to be alive and partly very amusing. The originals were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution; the current statues are a reconstruction of the 1980s.
Main Hall
The main hall contains many decorative statues. In the middle is Shakyamuni Buddha with his two closest disciples (bronze, Ming period), then a Burmese jade Buddha, and on the sides are sixteen sculptures depicting Gautama’s disciples. The painting on the wall tells the story of Gautama the Buddha leaving his parents’ palace and becoming a monk. The monastery lies between the high-rise buildings in the city center (Luohansi Jie Street; a branch of Minzu Lu) . Opening hours: every day. 8.30-18.00. There’s also a vegetarian monastery restaurant.
Monument to Liberation Heroes
At 200 meters southwest of the monastery in 1945 was erected a monument in honor of the victory over Japan, the height of 27.5 meters – the tower inside with a spiral staircase, which can be climbed. Today it is the center of the business district. Almost lost between the new high-rise buildings, it stands in a network of modernly decorated pedestrian zones with stores, benches, banks, cinemas, bars, restaurants and stalls. Chongqing’s business and commercial life is concentrated here.
Chaotianmen Square
It’s a sharp corner of the peninsula at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialingjiang, China’s important navigable rivers. The square with a wide panoramic view of the rivers (700 meters northeast of the Luohansa Monastery) is decorated in an ambitious, modern style. The view down the river is not to the east, as one would assume, but to the northwest, because the Yangtze makes a great loop here. Along the riverbanks there are rows of piers for ships.
Pipashan and the western parts of the city
Chongqing Municipal Museum
Founded in 1951, the Chongqing Municipal Museum by the Pipashan Mountain (2 km west of the downtown area), though somewhat dilapidated since then, displays thousands of years of history (bronze weapons, ceramics and paintings) to illustrate the cultural development of the Red Basin. Of great interest are, above all, the sculptures and tomb reliefs of the Han era. The natural science department is fascinating with dinosaur skeletons. There are no inscriptions in English. Pipashan Zhengjie 72. Opening hours: Everyday. 9.00-11.30, 14.00-16.50.
Pipashan Gongyuan Park
The most elevated central part of the city (345 m above sea level) is crowned by a pavilion. It is worth the climb at dusk when the lights break through the haze and illuminated advertisements color the fog in different colors.
People’s Square (Renmin Guangchang)
The only large park within the city limits was laid out in the early 1950s, 1 km northwest of the city museum. It is dominated by a monumental, notable building in style. People’s Auditorium is a curious monument in the socialist-Chinese style, erected in 1951-1953 with elements of imitation of imperial architecture. Its characteristic feature is its arc-shaped cone-shaped roof, which is 65 m high. The roof is similar in shape and color to the Hall of Prayer of the Harvest in the Altar of Heaven in Beijing. The smaller hall in front, high above the facade, imitates the tower superstructure of the Heavenly Gate in Beijing. The huge hall with four thousand seats, used for conferences and cultural events, is open for viewing. In the wings, strictly symmetrical on both sides, is the People’s Hotel (Zhenmnn Bingguan), which, of course, in the Socialist era was used not by the common people, but by seconded Party functionaries.
Three Gorges Museum
The glass and concrete building across the street is a remarkable piece of modern architecture. Several departments display the natural and cultural history of the Three Gorges area. Many of the exhibits were found in places that were permanently left under water after the construction of the dam on the Yangtze. Opening Hours: Daily. 9.30-17.00.
Arrivals and Departures
Chongqing has a civilian transportation airport (Jiangbei Jichang, 25 km north of the city), railroad stations and a river port on the Yangtze, above the gorges. Cruises on the river through the gorges begin and end here. There are express buses to Chengdu and Dazu (bus station next to the main station) .
In the city center it’s best to get around on your own. The subway – so far there is only one line, from the city center to the southwest – is almost unnecessary for visiting tourists. A special transport is the two funicular railway lines that connect the city center with the opposite banks of the two major rivers.
Interesting Fact
Sichuan-style stew with potatoes in different variations can be found nowhere in such an abundance of restaurants and eateries as on Wuyi Lu, which is also called “Huoguo Jie”, i.e. “Meat and Potato Street”. Its parallel, Bayi Lu Street in the business district to the southeast of the Liberator Heroes Monument, is another hotspot of the city’s culinary arts.
The World’s Largest City
The world’s largest city in terms of both population and area
The largest city in the world can be determined by 2 main criteria:
- Population . The number of residents of a city’s permanent population within its boundaries.
- The area of the city . The area of the city in square kilometers within the administrative boundaries of the city.
Photo: Chongqing (China). The largest city in the world
In this case, the largest city in the world, both in area and population, is the Chinese city of Chongqing, with an area of 82,403 km² and a population of 30,165,500. The full official name of the city is: Chongqing Central City and it is the largest city in the world .
It is the absolute leader in both of the main criteria for the largest city. Many countries in the world occupy an area smaller than Chongqing in China, and the closest state territory of 78,866 km² with a population of 10.6 million people ranks 115th in the world among countries in terms of area size.
Urbanized area and Central Chongqing.
The so-called urbanized area of Chongqing, informally called the “main urban area,” is 1,473 km² or 1.79% of the city. The central part of the urbanized area is called the Central Chongqing, which covers an area of 472.8 km² and has a population density of 17,000 people per square kilometer, and the population of Central Chongqing is 8,165,500.
Suburban area and rural areas.
The remaining 80,930 km² or 98.21% of the city’s total area is accounted for by the suburban and rural areas with a density of 268 people per square kilometer.
The agglomeration of the largest city in the world.
The population of the Chongqing agglomeration (city area including suburbs) is 52,100,100. Chongqing agglomeration is also the largest agglomeration in the world.
The World’s Largest City
List of the top 10 largest cities in the world by population :
- Chongqing , China = 30,165,500 people
- Shanghai , China = 24 150 000 people
- Beijing , China = 21 148 000 people
- Tianjin , China = 14,425,000 people
- Istanbul , Turkey = 13,854,740 people
- Guangzhou , China = 13,438,972 people
- Tokyo , Japan = 13,370,198 people
- Karachi , Pakistan = 13,205,339 people
- Mumbai , India = 12,478,447 people
- Moscow , Russia = 12,380,664 people
The most densely populated city in the world
You can also highlight the criterion of population density, or the average number of residents living per square kilometer of city area.
Photo: Manila (Philippines). The most densely populated city in the world
The most densely populated city in the world according to this criterion is Manila City in the Philippines (41 514 inhabitants/km²). At the same time, the population of Manila is: 1,780,148 people, and the area of the city is only : 42.88 km².
If the Chinese city of Chongqing, the world’s largest city, had the same high population density as Philippine Manila, nearly half the world’s population would be able to live there.
Meanwhile, the population density of Chongqing is 366 people per square kilometer, which is 113 times less than in Manila.
