Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it&#x27;s a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn&#x27;t perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution.<p>What amazes me is China&#x27;s capacity to do development on a large scale, something that&#x27;s completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of living crisis, and reverse the overcrowding of the existing urban centers.

&gt; The largest city in the world is as big as Austria, but few people have ever heard of it<p>Pet peeve but this article is confusing Chongqing&#x27;s entire land area with the city of Chongqing and associated urban areas (only 6% of Chongqing&#x27;s total land area).<p>The issue is 直辖市 is translated as &quot;direct-administered city&quot; but should be treated as a &quot;Direct-administered municipality&quot; or &quot;Direct-administered state&quot;.<p>Much of Chongqing (the 直辖市 not the city) was formed due to a reorganization of Sichuan in 1997.

I visited Chongqing when I lived in Shanghai around 2002. People regarded it as an insignificant city back then - everyone was so fixated on Shanghai and Beijing. Anyway, Chongqing was under major construction, as was most of the country. But I remember the locals used to say that when you walked to work in the morning you needed to leave a trail of rice because the city changes so rapidly that you&#x27;ll never find your way home by the time your shift is done. LOL

Haven&#x27;t been to Chongqing in a while, but the vertical nature of the city is fascinating [1]. It&#x27;s like they layered multiple cities on top of each other! Curious how that affects social interactions in daily life.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;CityPorn&#x2F;comments&#x2F;8kqwnf&#x2F;chongqing_china_the_vertical_city_1068x1600&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;CityPorn&#x2F;comments&#x2F;8kqwnf&#x2F;chongqing_...</a>

Seems to depend a bit on how you define &quot;city proper&quot;. Wikipedia has two lists:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_cities#List" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_cities#List</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Megacity#List_of_megacities" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Megacity#List_of_megacities</a><p>which disagree with this (and each other) on which city is largest.

I have to say I didn&#x27;t really have an interest in visiting China until I saw pictures of Chongqing. I spent a whole night one day watching walking videos in that city and vertical nature of it is just incredible.

German television made a very interesting documentary about the city a few months back: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;p49QRxO_n2c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;p49QRxO_n2c</a>

The city is also famous for its hot and humid climate. Locals have to eat lots of spicy foods to make their life a little bit easier. You won&#x27;t last more than a week there.

That bookstore is beautiful but how does one access books on that twenty foot tall shelf - it seems a bit impractical for even looking at the spine of a book.

These photos don&#x27;t do Chongqing justice. Google it and marvel at the beauty.<p>It&#x27;s an incredible city.

If you call Chongqing the largest city in the world (it is not), you need to call Canton (the Greater Bay Area, GBA) bigger. With 86m and the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzen, Foshan,... even without Hong Kong and Macao, it&#x27;s the largest mega city by far.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%E2%80%93Macao_Greater_Bay_Area" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%E2...</a>

As a city in western terms, Chongqing only has around 8 million people, and is not even in the top twenty of Chinese cities. If you include the entire municipality that is the size of Vermont, it’s largely rural with other cities inside it (so 31 million people total, 22 million urban, 8 million for Chongqing proper). Compare with Beijing which has around 10 million in its proper area (inside 5th ring) and 20 million people total.

I see countless US stories about how &quot;family farmers defend themselves from evil development&quot; or &quot;Oakland residents suffer the effects of global trade booming in their city&quot;. But when I read about China&#x27;s incredible growth nothing like that is ever mentioned. Why is that?

Fascinating. But not a single picture showing a non polluted sky.

How accessible is this for western tourists?

Those photos are fantastic.

In a walking video from there, it had incredibly clean random streets

&gt;Rail line going through an apartment building.<p>Absolutely hellish.

I am totally uninterested in China mainly due to them being so hostile to foreigners. Yes cities are impressive, technology and culture as well. But you are not welcome. At all.<p>You are sometimes not even tolerated.<p>And because of that your time in that country will be always limited. If China was to become like BKK or other SEA countries ....<p>That&#x27;s another story.