An incredible Chinese city is the largest in the world by population and covers an area about the size of Austria.
Chongqing, a megacity in Southwestern China with a resident population of some 32million people and covers a huge geographical is a vast metropolis filled with imposing skyscrapers, and multi-level highways.
It even has a monorail system that takes residents through residential tower blocks. The city is said to be so densely built up that at times the architecture blocks out the sun, as per The Mirror.
Jackson Lu, a local TikToker says for people living in the lower levels of the city, “sunlight is a luxury”.
Describing his life in the city, Jackson says he lives on 18th storey of an apartment building and commutes to work by walking down to the 12th floor where he gets the monorail from “a subway station that feels like the entrance to a fallout shelter.”
When he emerges at the other end, he steps out onto the main city square situated on 22nd floor of another huge multi-storey building, as per the outlet.
Even the bus services wind far above ground level, navigating “flyovers” on stilts above the city streets, Jackson says.
Though some people do have cars of their own, but the roads are a network of dizzying overpasses and spiral roads that aren’t for the feint hearted.
Bridges are integral to the city’s transport network due to its unique topography, which is crisscrossed by rivers like the Yangtze, Jialing, and Wujiang.
Chongqing has also made strides in bridge technology, combining new designs with cultural heritage over the past two decades.
According to YouTuber PPPeter, Chongqing’s story “starts and also kind of ends in 1997”.
“Back then Chongqing was just a big city somewhere in South Western China,” he said, adding: “To boost the economy and make administration smoother Chinese government added three districts of Fuling, Wanxian, and Quanjiang to Chongqing”.
The sprawling city now covers an area of over 80 000 sqare km (more than 49,700 square miles), making it about the size of Austria.
Chongqing is a historically important city. It served as the country’s capital between 1937 and 1945, during the Sino-Japanese War and World War 2.
