Chengdu (成都, pinyin cheng2 du1) is the capital of Sichuan province and a sub-provincial city, located in southwest China, and bordering Tibet. Its exact location is between 102º54' - 104º53' east longitude and 30º5' - 31º26' north latitude.

Chengdu has a population of 9.9 million and an area of 12,300 square kilometers. The GDP per capita was ¥20111 (ca. US$2430) in 2003, ranked no. 58 among 659 Chinese cities.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Alias 3 Colleges and universities

History

More than four thousand years ago, the prehistorical Bronze Age culture of Sanxingdui (三星堆) (4800-3100 BP) established itself in this region. Zizhu city (紫竹城) was one of the early settlement. Some believe that this culture is related to the BA culture of West Asia.

In the early 4th century BC, the king of the ancient Shu moved his capital to the city's current location. Classic history recorded King of Shu's move as "it took a year to become a town; it took 2 years to become a capital". Following this, king of Shu named the new city as "Cheng Du", which means "become a capital" (In Chinese, word "cheng" means "become", "du" means "capital").

After the conquer of Shu by Qin Dynasty in 316 BC, a new city was founded by the Qin general Zhang Yi, which marked the beginning of contemporary Chengdu. It was renamed Yi Zhou (益州) duirng Han Dynasty.

Liu Bei founded the kingdom of Shuhan (蜀汉) (220-263) in this city.

During Tang Dynasty, both the "Poet-God" Li Bai (李白) and the "Poet-Sage" Du Fu (杜甫) spent some part of their lives in Chengdu. Du Fu constructed the celebrated "Caotang" (草堂 or grass-hut) in the second year of his four year stay (759-762). But today's Caotang, a rather sumptuous house in the traditional style, was initially constructed in 1078 in memory of Du Fu.

Chengdu was the birthplace of the first widely used paper money in the world (Northern Song Dynasty, around A.D. 960).

Two more rebel leaders, one around the end of Song Dynasty, the other near the end of Ming Dynasty, set up the capitals of their short-lived kingdoms here, called Dashu (大蜀) and Daxi (大西), respectively.

Alias

• The Brocade City (Jin Cheng, 锦城)

  In Western Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD 23), brocade produced in Chengdu enjoyed great popularity among the royal and elite class in China. Emperor installed Jin-Guan (an official in charge of brocade production) to oversee brocade production in Chengdu. Since then, Chengdu has been called "Jin-Guan Cheng" (Brocade Official's City), or in its short form, "Jin Cheng" (Brocade city).

• The City of Hibiscus (Rong Cheng, 蓉城）

  In Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960), Mengchang, the king of the Later Shu Kingdom, ordered to plant hibiscus on the fortress wall surrounding the city. After this, Chengdu started being referred as the City of Hibiscus. Nowadays, hibiscus is still the city flower of Chengdu.