is a major discovery in Chengdu in 2001.
Early history Archaeological discoveries at the
Sanxingdui and
Jinsha Site have established that the area surrounding Chengdu was inhabited over four thousand years ago, in the 18th–10th centuryBC. At the time of China's
Xia,
Shang, and
Zhou dynasties, it represented a separate ancient
bronze-wielding culture that, following its partial
sinification, became known to the Chinese as
Shu. Shu was conquered by
Qin in 316BC, and the settlement was re-founded by Qin general
Zhang Yi.
Pre-Qin to Qin and Han dynasties In the early stage of the
Xia dynasty or even earlier, the ancient Shu Kingdom, located on the Chengdu Plain, had developed a relatively advanced bronze civilization, becoming an important source of Chinese civilization and one of the birthplaces of the Chinese nation. According to records, there were five dynasties in the ancient Shu Kingdom, and their capitals were Qushang (now Wenjiang District, Chengdu), Piyi (now Pidu District), Xindu, and Guangdu. At the end of the Spring and Autumn period (around the 4th century BC), the fifth King Kaiming moved the capital to Chengdu. According to "Taiping Huanyu Ji", the name of the city is borrowed from the history of the establishment of the capital in the Western Zhou dynasty. The allusion in Zhou Wang Qianqi's "one year, he lived in a cluster, two years became a city, and three years Chengdu" is to the name Chengdu; it has been used to this day. Therefore, Chengdu has become a rare city in China and the world that has not changed its name since its establishment. Some people think that Chengdu is a transliteration of ancient Shu place names. There is a saying that "Guangdu, Xindu, and Chengdu" are collectively referred to as the "Three Capitals of Ancient Shu". Nowadays, many cultural relics of the ancient Shu Kingdom are located on the Chengdu Plain, including Sanxingdui Ruins, Jinsha Ruins, Yufu Ancient City Ruins, and Wangcong Temple. Jinsha Ruins, located in Chengdu's urban area, is a pinnacle of ancient Shu culture. The Golden Mask of the Shang and Zhou dynasties at the Jinsha Site. The ancient state of Shu was the first target to be conquered by the Qin state in the process of unifying the world. King Huiwen of Qin had prepared for this for many years and opened the Shiniu Road (i.e., the Jinniu Road) from Qin to Shu. In 316 BC, King Huiwen of Qin took advantage of the mutual attack between Ba and Shu and sent Sima Cuo to lead his army into Shu along the Shiniu Road, capturing the land in a few months. After that, the king of Qin abolished the three Shu Hou and finally established Shu County, with the county seat in Chengdu, the former capital of Shu. In 311 BC, Zhang Yi of the Qin dynasty built the Chengdu city wall according to the system of the capital Xianyang, building a large city and a small city. In 256 BC, King Zhao of Qin appointed Li Bing as the governor of Shu County. During his tenure, he presided over the construction of the world-famous Dujiangyan Water Conservancy Project. The Chengdu Plain has been fertile and wild for thousands of miles since then. After decades of operation, Chengdu replaced Guanzhong Plain in the late Qin dynasty and was called the "Land of Abundance"; this reputation has endured to this day. During the Han dynasty, the Chengdu economy, especially its brocade industry, prospered, becoming an important source of tribute to the court. The imperial court invested in Chengdu and specifically set up the Jinguan management and built "Jinguan City" in the southwest of Chengdu; "Jinguan City" and "Jincheng" became nicknames for Chengdu. In the second year of Emperor Ping of the Yuan dynasty, Chengdu's population reached 76,000 households, or about 354,000 people, making it one of the most populous cities at the time. Towards the six major cities. In the third year of the reign of Emperor Jing of the Han dynasty (141 BC), the Wen Dang, the prefect of Shu County, established the world's earliest local government-run school, "Wenweng Shishi", in Chengdu. In the Han dynasty, Chengdu's literature and art also reached a high level. All the most famous literary masters in the Han dynasty were from Chengdu, including Sima Xiangru, Yang Xiong, and Wang Bao. In the former Han dynasty, the whole country was divided into 14 prefectural governors' departments, among which the Yizhou governor was established in Luoxian (now Guanghan City, Sichuan), and the governor later moved to Chengdu. In the first year of Emperor Guangwu's reign (25 years) in the Eastern Han dynasty, Gongsun Shu established himself as the emperor in Chengdu, and the country's name was "married family". In the twelfth year of Jianwu in the Later Han dynasty (36 years), the Great Sima Wuhan of the Eastern Han dynasty finally captured Chengdu after five years of war, and his family perished in the process. In the fifth year of Zhongping (188), Emperor Ling of Han, the court accepted Liu Yan's suggestion and changed the provincial governors to state shepherds with actual recruitment and command power. In the fifth year of Chuping (194), it moved to Chengdu. At that time, the Yizhou Provincial Governor's Department was the place where the Hu people in the Western Regions were operating.
Imperial era built in 256 BC still functions today. Under the
Han, the
brocade produced in Chengdu became fashionable and was exported throughout China. A "Brocade Official" () was established to oversee its production and transaction. After the fall of the Eastern Han,
Liu Bei ruled
Shu Han, the southwestern part of the
Three Kingdoms, from Chengdu. His
minister Zhuge Liang called the area the "Land of Abundance". Under the
Tang, Chengdu was considered the second most prosperous city in China after
Yangzhou. Both
Li Bai and
Du Fu lived in the city.
Li Bai praised it as "lying above the
empyrean." The city's present Caotang ("Grass Hall") was constructed in 1078 in honor of an earlier, more humble structure of that name erected by Du Fu in 760, the second year of his 4-year stay. The
Taoist Qingyang Gong ("Green Goat Temple") was built in the 9th century. Chengdu was the capital of
Wang Jian's
Former Shu from 907 to 925, when it was conquered by the
Later Tang. The
Later Shu was founded by
Meng Zhixiang in 934, with its capital at Chengdu. Its second and last king,
Meng Chang, beautified the city by ordering
hibiscus to be planted upon the
city walls. The
Song conquered the city in 965, introducing the first widely used
paper money in the world.
Su Shi praised it as "the southwestern metropolis". At the fall of the Song, a rebel leader set up a short-lived kingdom known as Great Shu (,
Dàshǔ). Allegedly, the
Mongols called for the death of a million people in the city, but the city's population had fewer than 30,000 residents (not Chengdu prefecture). The aged males who had not fled were killed, while in typical fashion, the women, children, and artisans were enslaved and deported. During the
Yuan dynasty, most of Sichuan's residents were deported to Hunan due to the insurgency by western ethnic tribes in western Sichuan.
Marco Polo visited Chengdu and wrote about the
Anshun Bridge or an earlier version of it. At the fall of the
Ming, the rebel
Zhang Xianzhong established his Great Western Kingdom () with its capital at Chengdu; it lasted only from 1643 to 1646. Zhang was said to have massacred a large number of people in Chengdu and throughout Sichuan. In any case, Chengdu was said to have become a virtual ghost town frequented by tigers and the depopulation of Sichuan necessitated the resettlement of millions of people from other provinces during the
Qing dynasty. Following the
Columbian Exchange, the
Chengdu Plain became one of China's principal sources of
tobacco.
Pi County was considered to have the highest quality in Sichuan, which was the center of the country's
cigar and
cigarette production, the rest of the country long continuing to consume
snuff instead. During
World War II, the capital city of China was forced to move inland from
Nanjing to
Wuhan in 1937 and from Wuhan to Chengdu, then from Chengdu to
Chongqing in 1938, as the
Kuomintang (KMT) government under
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ultimately retreated to
Sichuan to escape from the invading Japanese forces. They brought with them to Sichuan businesspeople, workers, and academics who founded many of the industries and cultural institutions that continue to make Chengdu an important cultural and commercial production center. The massed formation of the G3M bombers provided heavy firepower against
Chinese fighter planes assigned to the defense of Chongqing and Chengdu, which continued to cause problems for the Japanese attacks. Slow and vulnerable obsolescent Chinese fighter aircraft burning low-grade fuel were still sufficiently dangerous in the hands of capable pilots against the Japanese
schnellbomber-
terror bombing raiders; on 4 November 1939, for instance, Capt.
Cen Zeliu (
Wade-Giles: Shen Tse-Liu) led his
17th Fighter Squadron, 5th Fighter Group of seven cannon-equipped
Dewoitine D.510 fighters in a level head-on attack against an incoming coming raid of 72
IJANF G3M bombers (Capt. Cen chose this tactic knowing that the operation of the
Hispano-Suiza HS.404 20mm autocannon in his D.510 is likely to fail under the
g-loads of a high-deflection diving attack), with Capt. Cen pummeling the lead G3M of the IJN's ''
13th Kōkūtai's CO
Captain Kikushi Okuda with cannon fire, sending the G3M crashing down in flames over Chengdu, along with three other G3M bombers destroyed in the Chengdu raid that day. With the death of Captain Okuda in the air battle over Chengdu, the IJN became the highest-ranking IJN Air officer to be killed-in-action in the War of Resistance/World War II'' thus far. In mid- to late-1940, unknown to the Americans and European allies, the Imperial Japanese appeared in the skies over Chongqing and Chengdu with the world's most advanced fighter plane at the time: the
A6M "Zero" fighter that dominated the skies over China against the increasingly obsolete Russian-made
Polikarpov I-15/I-153s and
I-16s that were the principal fighter planes of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force. This would later prove to be a
rude awakening for the
Allied forces in the Pacific War following the
attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the first American ace fighter pilots of the war and original volunteer fighter pilot for the Chinese Nationalist Air Force,
Major Huang Xinrui (nicknamed "Buffalo" by his comrades) died as a result of battling the Zero fighters along with his squadronmates Cen Zeliu and Lin Heng (younger brother of renowned architect
Lin Huiyin) defending
Chengdu on 14 March 1941. Following the
attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941, the United States began setting up stations at airbases in China. In 1944, the American
XX Bomber Command launched
Operation Matterhorn, an ambitious plan to base
B-29 Superfortresses in Chengdu and strategically bomb the
Japanese Home Islands. The operating base was located in
Xinjin Airport in the southwestern part of the Chengdu metropolitan area. Because the operation required a massive airlift of fuel and supplies over the Himalayas, it was not a significant military success, but it did earn Chengdu the distinction of launching the first serious retaliation against the Japanese homeland. troops entered Chengdu on 27 December 1949 During the
Chinese Civil War, Chengdu was the last major city on the
Chinese mainland to be held by the Kuomintang. President Chiang Kai-shek and his son
Chiang Ching-kuo directed the defense of the city from the Chengdu Central Military Academy () until 1949, when
Communist forces
took the city on 27 December. The
People's Liberation Army took the city without any resistance after a deal was negotiated between the People's Liberation Army and the commander of the KMT Army guarding the city. On 10 December
the remnants of the Nationalist Chinese government evacuated to
Taiwan. The
Chengdu Tianfu New Area is a sustainable planned city that will be outside of Central Chengdu. The city is also planned to be self-sustaining, with every residence being a two-minute walk from a park.
The Great City In 2019, Chengdu overtook
Shenzhen, China's technology hub, as the best-performing Chinese economy. The city has surged in population in the last two decades. Investments into the Europe-Chengdu Express Railway have been made, providing even more opportunities for the city to grow. This proto-type city is intended to provide affordable, high-quality lifestyle, which provides people-oriented spaces that
does not require a car to navigate. Their current urban-planning focus in the city of Chengdu is to make the city 'a city within a park' rather than creating parks within a city. The Great City falls in line with the Chengdu 'park city' initiative, prioritizing the environment, public space, and quality of life. It will consist of 15% park and green space and be situated on a area. Although 25% of the space will be dedicated to roads, one half of the roads will be
pedestrian-oriented. This transit system provides direct service to Chengdu. It is expected that the city will consume 48% less energy than cities of similar size. The goal of the 'park city' project is to enable a city like Chengdu to compete with
Beijing and
Shanghai without stripping it of its character. The city of Chengdu is already known for its focus on quality of life, which includes affordable housing, good public schools, trees, and bike lanes. ==Geography==