Cyberpunk mountain city — mala hotpot, neon river gorges, and Three Gorges gateway
Chongqing is unlike any other city in China — a megacity of 32 million spread across dramatic mountain terrain where the Jialing meets the Yangtze, with elevated highways threading between skyscrapers and hilltop monorail trains. It is the birthplace and undisputed capital of mala hotpot — the numbing-spicy broth of dried chilies, Sichuan peppercorns, and tallow that swallows tables of beef sliced thin, tripe, and lotus root.
Chongqing served as the wartime capital of Nationalist China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), enduring over 200 Japanese bombing raids while sheltering China's wartime government and millions of refugees. After 1949, the city became a centre of heavy industry under the Communists. In 1997, Chongqing was carved out of Sichuan province as its own municipality — with direct central government control — making it a vast, fast-growing economic zone.