When you’re on the flight to the city of Chengdu perhaps you’ll ask one of the passengers sitting beside you: “How long does it take to Chengdu now ?” He’ll answer: “When you hear the loud sound of playing mahjong, you’re arriving in the city.” Indeed, playing mahjong is a very popular pastime for Chengdu people, but as a provincial capital of Sichuan Province, China, it consists of various specialties like tea culture (which is quite akin to Hangzhou in eastern China), the ever famous and taste-teasing Sichuan spicy cuisine, belles and the leisurely life of its people. If you read the simple-sketched map of Chengdu, you may find it looks like a roughly-knitted net for which there are many ring roads inside the city,which is very interesting. Chengdu is also the home of lovely giant pandas and the city of cotton-rose hibiscus.

 

1. Chengdu History and Attractions

Chengdu traditionally is the center of southwest China before Chongqing Municipality appears, and boasts the center of Heavenly Region. Chengdu is a real leisure city of China. Thanks to its slow and free lifestyle, Chengdu becomes the hometown of many great celebrities of ancient China. Before Qin unified China, Chengdu was administrated by Chu State, but in the late period of warring states, Chengdu was occupied by Qin State, due to this failure of Chu state in diplomatic negotiations. In Han Dynasty, Chengdu was an important transportation hub and a center of Han Empire to administrate the southwest ethnic groups. In Emperor Wudi’s reign, Marshal Tang Meng opened the official way to connect with the minorities. Since then, Chengdu’s interconnection with middle China becomes closer.

Wen Weng(文翁), a famous regional official for its great administration and academics in the aspect of Confucianism, was the pioneer and the teacher of civilized Chengdu. He largely extended the Confucianism and spread the importance of study and culture. With his influence and efforts, Chengdu became another important cultural center of Han Empire, many famous scholars, poets, literary masters appeared. Sima Xiangru(司马相如), Wang Bao(王褒) and Yang Xiong(扬雄), the saint-like figures influenced China too much.

Sima Xiangru’s love story also touched Chinese people for thousands of years. The love story of Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun is also one of the most romantic love legends of ancient China. Sima Xiangru used to be a bodyguard(武骑散射) of Emperor Jingdi, Early West Han Dynasty, and then moved to Kingdom of Liang to create fu articles. After King Xiaowang died, he returned to hometown, and one time, he was attracted by Zhuo Wenjun’s beauty in a party hosted by Zhuo Family. Zhuo Wenjun was a widow, and the daughter of Zhuo Wangsun, the richest man of Chengdu. Hence, for expressing his admiration, he played his guqin, said to be the famous Lvqi Qin inherited from Fan li(范蠡), and sung his famous poem, Feng Qiu Huang(凤求凰). It deeply touched Zhuo Wenjun, and at that night, they eloped. This made Zhuo Wangsun quite angry, and he refused their marriage, and rejected to accept Zhuo Wenjun as his daughter any more. At the time, Sima Xiangru was quite poor, for living, they sold wines in Chengdu, and Zhuo Wenjun sung the song to draw the attentions of walkers or guests. This becomes an idiom called Dang Lu Mai Jiu(当垆卖酒). Later, Sima Xiangru became nationwide famous overnight and was promoted to be Zhonglangjiang(中郎将) in charge of the connections with the southwest ethnic groups. And then, the relationship of Zhuo Wenjun and his father recovered.

In period of Three Kingdoms, Chengdu was the center of Shu State, and its statue in China rose to be one of tri-polar powers. Zhuge Liang played his super intelligence at the time. Today, there are many historic sites themed with him in downtown area of Chengdu like Lord Wu Memorial Temple.

Chengdu is a typical tourist destination of China, a large number of tourist attractions over there give this city limitless enchantment. There are also many sites written into the list of World Heritage Sites.

 

2. Chengdu Geography and Climate  

The provincial capital of Sichuan Province in western China is located in the west of the Sichuan Basin and in the center of Chengdu Plain; Chengdu covers a total area of 12.3 thousand sq. km (4,749 sq. mi). The elevation of the area is just 500 m above the sea level, with high grounds surrounding like Wushan Mountain in the east, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the south, Tibetan Plateau in the west and Bashan Mountain in the north, for such a special topology, so the ancient Chengdu was culturally isolated from the outside world, and known as “a country that is blocked by mountains on the four sides”. But benefiting from the great Dujiangyan Irrigation Project which was constructed in 256 B.C., Sichuan Province is reputed as “Tian Fu Zhi Guo” (Heavenly State), literally “a place richly endowed with natural resources”. Chengdu, as the capital, is extremely productive. The Min and Tuo Rivers, two branches of the Yangtze River, connected to forty other rivers, supply an irrigation area of more than 700 sq. km (270.27 sq. mi) with 150 to 180 million kilowatts of water power with abundant mineral resources, the land is extremely fertile. The administration area of Chengdu is divided into seven urban districts, four cities of county administrative level and eight counties with two new high -tech zones.

Due to its unique geographical environment and position, Chengdu belongs to central subtropical monsoon climate, with no extreme heat and cold, but wet throughout the year, no high winds, less sunshine and low air pressure. In spring, the temperature rises fast but cold days are common. In summer, the weather is hot and very rainy. In autumn, it is rainy also while the temperature drops quite quickly. And in winter, very cool and still feeling wet but not much frost and snow. Thus giving you the overall feeling of Chengdu’s weather is good apart from the very warm and humid summer, cloudy sky, some miserable winter days and extreme foggy conditions.

There are some useful facts about Chengdu’s climate. The annual average temperature: 18.4 degrees Celsius, the highest and the lowest recorded temperatures are 38.6 and -3.7 degrees Celsius respectively. The coldest month is January and the hottest month is July that the mean daily temperatures are 6.8 and 28.5 degrees Celsius respectively; and the annual average relative humidity is 84% (which means that you’d feel so wet all year round).

 

3. City Population of Chengdu  

According statistics, the total population in Chengdu is estimated around 12.21 million. Unlike the other parts of the Sichuan Province where many ethnic minorities like Tibetan, Qiang, Miao, Hui, Mongolian, Tujia and Manchu are living, Han Chinese is the vast majority nationality group in Chengdu. The fast growing of the population in the city thus makes Chengdu become a metropolitan.