- Wade-Giles romanization:
- Ch’ung-ch’ing
- Conventional:
- Chungking
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Government
Chongqing’s municipal government is part of the hierarchical structure of the Chinese government—and the parallel structure of the Chinese Communist Party—that extends from the national organization, through the provincial-municipal apparatus, to the district and, ultimately, neighbourhood levels. The principal responsibilities of the Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress, the major decision-making body, include issuing administrative orders, collecting taxes, determining the budget, and implementing economic plans. A standing committee selected from its members recommends policy decisions and oversees the operation of municipal government. Executive authority rests with the Chongqing People’s Government, the officers of which are elected by the Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress; it consists of a mayor, vice mayors, and numerous bureaus in charge of public security, the judicial system, and other civil, economic, social, and cultural affairs.
Administratively, the city is divided into a number of districts (shixiaqu), counties (xian), and autonomous counties (zizhixian). Grassroots administrative units are organized as villages in rural areas and as neighbourhood street committees in urban districts. Neighbourhood street committees perform the auxiliary functions of mediating disputes, propagating legal orders, and promoting sanitation and welfare. These committees are quasi-official administrations, covering blocks of streets of varying sizes. Chongqing municipality has considerably extended the territorial limits of the municipal area to include a series of urban-rural units surrounding the city proper. Since 1980 the municipal government has allowed farmers to engage in industry, commerce, and transportation in addition to cultivation.
Public utilities
Although an electric-light plant was established in the early 1900s, it was not until the late 1920s and early 1930s that a modernization drive was launched by local leaders in Chongqing to improve living conditions. Demolition of the city walls was initiated, streets were widened, and a piped-water system and a telephone exchange were introduced. Yet even during the 1940s sanitation and public hygiene were still poor. The city had a large rat population, opium smoking in homes and inns was widespread, and lice-ridden waifs and beggars were a familiar sight. But because of energetic measures carried out since 1949, including the installation of a modern sewer system with sewage-treatment plants and the building of garbage-disposal facilities, these conditions belong to the past. Chongqing has achieved a high degree of cleanliness, the capacity of the water-supply system has been enhanced, and the general living conditions of residential districts have improved. However, air pollution has become a serious problem.
Health
Chongqing has a considerable number of hospitals and health care facilities. By the early 21st century there were some 2,500 medical and health care institutions in the municipality, staffed with a workforce of about 80,000 people. Most of them are equipped with enough beds and with modern instruments and equipment for diagnosis and treatment. However, the adoption of commercialized medical facilities in the early 1990s made it more difficult for ordinary residents to afford good health care services. Western-style medicine is combined with traditional herbal medicine and acupuncture. Family planning is practiced, and contraceptives usually are distributed free. Physical fitness is emphasized by the government.
Education
Since 1949 the number of schools at all levels—kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, and secondary schools—has increased. The growth of kindergartens, which were little known before 1940, has enabled many women to obtain proper care for their children and thus become part of the workforce. The government has attached great importance to the establishment of teacher-training schools, vocational-technical schools, and part-time agricultural middle schools.
Chongqing is a national centre of higher education, with some three dozen universities and colleges. Several of the major institutions are in Shapingba district, including Chongqing University (founded in 1929), Southwest University (1906), Southwest University of Political Science and Law (1950), and Chongqing Normal University (1954). Other schools include Chongqing Medical University (1956) in Yuzhong district, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (1940) in Jiulongpo district, and Chongqing Jiaotong University (1951) in Nan’an district.
Cultural life
Chongqing Library and Chongqing Municipal Museum are among the leading cultural centres in the city. The latter institution was merged into a new venue, the China Three Gorges Museum, that opened in central Chongqing in 2005; among the many historical and cultural artifacts displayed there are large numbers of items collected from areas that were submerged by the Three Gorges reservoir. The Great Hall of the People, with its large, traditionally styled dome, is another popular attraction. The city has maintained a number of locations associated with the wartime Nationalist government period, including the residences of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, Song Qingling (wife of Sun Yat-sen), and U.S. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell. In addition, Chongqing municipality has numerous acting and acrobatic troupes, including those performing Sichuan opera.
Sports and recreation are dominant features of Chongqing’s cultural life. Datianwan Stadium in Yuzhong district, the city’s main sports centre, offers a football (soccer) field; volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts; a track-and-field venue; and a parachute tower. Sports centres and stadiums have also been constructed in the other districts, including the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center (opened 2004) in Jiupongpo district. Numerous parks, both in the Old City districts and in outlying areas, attract large numbers of visitors. Of particular appeal are the hot springs, which are open year-round. South of the city, among well-kept gardens with lakes and pavilions, are the sulfurous springs of Nanwenquan Park. Some 30 miles (50 km) northwest of the city centre are the well-known hot springs of Beiwenquan Park, along the Jialing River. Visitors come to relax, often soaking for hours in one of the numerous baths filled with warm mineral water, or they swim in one of the three Olympic-sized pools, which are also fed by the hot springs.
Chongqing municipality boasts two UNESCO World Heritage sites: the Dazu Rock Carvings (designated 1999), located on steep hillsides west of the central city; and the Wulong karst area to the southeast, which is part of a larger karst region of southern China (designated 2007). Other notable scenic areas in the municipality include the magnificent Three Gorges area along the Yangtze in the northeast; the White Emperor Town (Baidicheng), a strategic fort during the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo) period (220–280 ce), east of Fengjie in the northeast; the historic Zhang Fei Temple (between Wanzhou and Fengjie), a memorial to Zhang Fei, a renowned general of the Shu-Han kingdom (one of the Three Kingdoms); and the “Ghost Town” of Fengdu, on the Yangtze some 100 miles (160 km) east of the central city.
A noteworthy feature of Chongqing’s cultural life is its distinctive Sichuan cuisine. This highly spiced food is characterized mainly by the use of hot peppers as well as by such delicacies as tree ears (a type of mushroom), black mushrooms, and fresh bamboo shoots and peanuts. Chongqing is renowned for its distinctive huoguo (“hotpot”), a style of cooking in which portions of vegetables and meat are cooked at the table in a chafing dish filled with a spicy soup base.
History of Chongqing
The early period
According to ancient accounts, Chongqing was the birthplace of the consort of the legendary Yu emperor, founder of the Xia dynasty, about 4,000 years ago. In the 11th century bce, under the Xi (Western) Zhou dynasty, the region surrounding Chongqing became a feudal state known as Ba. In the 5th century bce Ba established relations with the mid-Yangtze kingdom of Chu. It was later incorporated into the Qin empire. By the mid-3rd century bc the region was part of the kingdom of Shu and was totally independent of northern and central China.
The swing of the historical pendulum—in which the city and its surrounding area’s status alternated between forming part of an empire in northern and central China and detaching itself to become independent of both northern and central China—continued throughout subsequent centuries. The city became an integral part of the unified Chinese empire first under the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and then under the Qing, or Manchu, dynasty (1644–1911/12).
The first substantial city wall was constructed about 250 bce. It was repaired and expanded during the 3rd century ce and about 1240 and was rebuilt with solid stone early in the Ming period. In the 1630s, near the end of the Ming, the rebellion of Zhang Xianzhong subjected Chongqing to plunder, slaughter, and destruction. The city wall was restored in 1663. Some 5 miles (8 km) in circumference, it had a total of 17 gates: 8 gates remained closed on the advice of geomancers (practitioners of divination by means of figures or lines), while 9 were open to traffic. Additional work was done to strengthen the city wall in 1760.
The modern period
Chongqing was opened to British trade in 1890, but navigational difficulties on the Yangtze delayed steamer traffic for more than a decade. Meanwhile, the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), which concluded the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), gave Japan the right to access the wharves of Chongqing as well. Accordingly, in 1901, when British trade opened, a Japanese concession also was established at Wangjiatuo, on the south shore of the Yangtze. This concession lasted until 1937, when it was abandoned by Japan on the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45).
In 1911, on the eve of the Chinese Revolution, Chongqing—along with the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu—played a major role in bringing about the overthrow of the Manchus; many patriots of the region joined the revolutionary party of the Chinese Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan). Despite such progressive trends and a nominal allegiance to the central government, Chongqing was unable to break away from the grip of regional separatism.
Yet in 1938, a year after war had again broken out with Japan, Chongqing became the capital of the Nationalist government. Hundreds of government offices were moved to the city from Nanjing, along with the diplomatic missions of foreign countries. Tens of thousands of people came from coastal provinces, bringing with them arsenals, factories, and schools. Friendly powers at the time also rushed supplies to Chongqing to bolster its war effort. Despite the Japanese bombings, the morale of the population—which had grown to more than 1,000,000 from a prewar total of less than 250,000—was high. Chiang Kai-shek’s failure to control inflation and corruption, however, caused the war effort to falter from 1942 onward. In 1946, on the eve of the renewed civil war against the communists, the Nationalist capital returned to Nanjing. Three years later, in April 1949, communist forces took Nanjing. The Nationalist government fled to Guangzhou (Canton) and then once again—for less than two months—to Chongqing (October to late November 1949). When the Nationalists fled to Taiwan in December, the communist victory on the mainland was complete.
More than a decade of warfare had devastated the city, but repair of the war damage began shortly after the communist takeover. The new regime also vigorously pursued restoring and expanding the city’s industrial base, which had been established in the early 20th century. Even though energies were temporarily deflected during the periods of the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the city nonetheless succeeded in carrying out extensive modernization projects and significantly raised the standard of living.
Chongqing had been an independent municipality during the Nationalist period, but from 1954 to 1996 it was a city under the administration of Sichuan province. In 1997 it was separated from the province to become a provincial-level municipality directly under the central government. At that time, jurisdiction for the entire eastern portion of Sichuan was transferred to the new municipality, thereby greatly expanding Chongqing’s area and population. Chongqing’s population grew dramatically and its economy boomed after that.
Ping-chia Kuo Mingye Wang The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica