Chengdu, New and Now
Pioneering is an inevitable path for a city's development, and Chengdu is no exception.
This megacity spanning over 14,000 square kilometers has undergone countless expansions and reorganizations in just a few decades.
Today, it has finally broken the urban layout of "two mountains sandwiching a city," marking a "millennium transformation."
Crossing the Longquan Mountains to the east, the city's structure opens up, making "one mountain connecting two wings" a reality.
In 2020, the Chengdu Eastern New Area, carrying immense expectations, emerged adjacent to the eastern side of Longquan Mountain.
Highways and railways crisscross here, and Chengdu Tianfu International Airport, the largest civil transport airport built during China's 13th Five-Year Plan, is also located here.
With the Tianfu International Airport aviation port passing the national inspection, Chengdu's "new gateway to the world" is gradually opening. The Eastern New Area, home to this airport, is poised to become a new hub for Chengdu and the entire southwestern region.
Please view horizontally: Tianfu International Airport shrouded in rare advection fog.
In the national "Top 100 Urban New Areas with Development Potential" list released by the CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Chengdu Eastern New Area has ranked first for two consecutive years.
It's hard to imagine that this place was once extremely difficult to even enter Chengdu. So, how did it transform into today's southwestern hub?
All of this begins with a mountain.
Looking down at Sichuan from above, amidst a lowland surrounded by mountains, a slender ridge runs north-south.
This is Longquan Mountain. To the west lies the millennia-old Chengdu Plain; to the east, despite dense hills, cities like Ziyang thrive, and Chongqing is just over 200 kilometers away.
For centuries, this mountain has been the biggest barrier to communication between its two sides, with only an ancient post road winding down, known as the "Eastern Great Road."
The Ming-Qing era Chengdu Eastern Great Road, passing through Shipanpu (today's Shipan Street), led to Chongqing.
However, this road was treacherous. Rain or snow turned it muddy and impassable. Even the later Chengdu-Chongqing Highway, built along this ancient route and dubbed the "First Road of the Southwest," often saw fatal accidents due to its sharp curves and steep slopes.
After multiple renovations, the original Chengdu-Chongqing Highway has become what we know today.
For Chengdu to expand eastward smoothly, a path through the mountains was essential.
In 1952, 14 tunnels pierced Longquan Mountain, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, New China's first railway, roared through the tunnels.
The railway passed by Yangma River at the mountain's foot, turning this obscure riverside town into a bustling spot.
The green trains brought in grain and oil from other regions, as well as modern factories like the Sichuan Rubber Plant and the Yangmahe Bridge Factory.
The small Yangmahe Station was piled with tires, sleepers, and other goods waiting to be transported. Meanwhile, Yangma Town grew into an industrial hub.
Later, with the Third Front Movement, many industries relocated from the east to the Chengdu-Chongqing corridor. However, the 13-hour railway journey couldn’t keep up with the surging transportation demand.
It wasn’t until 1995 that Southwest China’s first expressway—the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway—finally arrived amid eager anticipation.
The new road took over the task of connecting the two cities, passing through Shipan Town further west and cutting travel time to just four hours.
Two decades later, Sichuan’s first outbound high-speed rail, the Chengdu-Chongqing Passenger Dedicated Line, crossed Longquan Mountain again, now bringing the two cities within just 62 minutes at speeds of up to 350 km/h.
But speed alone wasn’t enough—closer ties demanded more roads.
In 2016, the Chongqing-Chengdu Expressway (Cheng’an-Yu Expressway) was fully completed, becoming the shortest expressway between the two cities.
In 2020, the Chengdu-Ziyang-Chongqing Expressway opened, linking Chongqing via Ziyang.
By the end of 2022, the fourth railway between Chengdu and Chongqing, the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line High-Speed Rail, was announced, further shrinking the distance. Its Jianzhou Station will rise here as the future eastern New Area rail hub.
Countless roads and rails intertwined, and after millennia of close exchanges, Chengdu and Chongqing—the two largest cities in western China—finally merged into a "one-hour city circle."
The eastern New Area, situated along the Chengdu-Chongqing corridor, also welcomed its golden era.
Shipan and Yangma now form Jianzhou New City, where the former rubber plant has become a national tire manufacturing base. Geely University relocated from Beijing, nurturing talent for new energy and smart vehicle industries.
Longquan Mountain, the enduring natural barrier, witnessed the eastern New Area’s first breakthrough amid the sound of train whistles.
The trains brought industry, but the land struggled to retain people—because beyond transportation, a more pressing issue awaited resolution.
Longquan Mountain not only hindered human movement eastward but also blocked the eastward flow of water.
West of the mountain, the Chengdu Plain, transformed by projects like the Dujiangyan irrigation system, boasted the densest river network in the Sichuan Basin. In contrast, the eastern side’s waterways were sparse.
Worse, the region suffered prolonged spring, summer, and late-summer droughts, lasting nearly four months. Water scarcity and drought parched farmland, even threatening daily drinking water.
This life at the mercy of nature stifled the land’s vitality and Chengdu’s eastward expansion.
Diverting water was the best solution to the local drought.
The artificial river "Dongfeng Canal," diverted from Dujiangyan, was forced to halt on the western side of Longquan Mountain due to its obstruction.
To allow it to flow further east, we had to tunnel through Longquan Mountain once again.
In 1970, the water diversion project officially commenced.
Hundreds of thousands of local laborers, using the simplest tools like shovels, dug a 6,274-meter-long tunnel through the middle section of Longquan Mountain while constructing three reservoirs and several irrigation channels at the eastern foothills—this became the renowned "Eastern Irrigation" project.
After a decade, the trickling waters of Dujiangyan finally traversed Longquan Mountain, reaching the parched lands of the Eastern New Area.
The flowing water nourished fertile fields and supported a more prosperous life for the people.
Not only did the farmland become stable and high-yielding, but orchards of late white peaches, cherries, and citrus were also established. Meanwhile, the reservoirs originally built for water storage were also used for fish farming.
However, the good times didn’t last. High-density cage fishing and other activities deposited vast amounts of waste at the lake bottom, accumulating over the years and leading to deteriorating water quality, causing fish in the lake to die one after another.
Starting in 2003, environmental remediation of the reservoirs was put on the agenda. After six years of effort, the water quality improved from the worst Class V by two levels, reaching Class III standards.
Fishing; China's water quality is classified into five categories, with Class I being the best. Class III water can be used for drinking after purification.
The largest reservoir of the "Eastern Irrigation" project, Sancha Reservoir, after dredging and remediation, became today’s picturesque Sancha Lake.
Over 58,000 trees took root here, raising the forest coverage rate in the Sancha Lake area to over 85%.
The lake’s 113 islands and more than 160 peninsulas, some blooming year-round and others teeming with wild birds, attract over 50,000 birds such as egrets and black-headed gulls to settle here.
Greenways wind along the lakeshore, connecting parks of all sizes like the Tianfu Olympic Sports Park and Jiangxi River Park, eventually meeting the forest greenways on Longquan Mountain to form the slow-traffic framework of the Eastern New Area.
From then on, Longquan Mountain was no longer a barrier to the east but became Chengdu’s "urban green heart."
As the mountain’s resistance faded, beneath the forest, Metro Line 18 traversed from the inner city eastward through the mountain.
Meanwhile, industries also began relocating eastward.
Research achievements from institutions like Sichuan University found their transformation bases by Sancha Lake. The automotive manufacturing industry also moved east to the new area, forming an intelligent manufacturing hub integrating "people, city, and industry" alongside Geely University.
When the mountain no longer stood tall and majestic, and water no longer constrained production, Chengdu’s eastward march became unstoppable.
Yet, compared to surrounding cities, even with numerous railways, roads, and rivers, the Eastern New Area is not unique. To stand out, it must shift its gaze from the ground to the skies.
Across the vast lands between Europe and western China, apart from the two major aviation hubs of Dubai in the Arabian Peninsula and Doha in Qatar, there are hardly any other large-scale international aviation hubs of comparable size.
Located at a crucial node of the Eurasian air route, Chengdu naturally seizes this opportunity to secure a place in the global competition for aviation hubs.
A single Shuangliu Airport is not enough—for Chengdu, building a new airport better meets the city's long-term development needs.
Looking across Chengdu, the densely populated area west of Longquan Mountain lacks the vast space required for a new airport, while the eastern side not only offers ample land but also serves as a new link between Chengdu and Chongqing with its advantageous location.
In June 2021, Tianfu International Airport officially opened, making Chengdu the third city in China after Beijing and Shanghai to have "dual international hub airports."
Soon after, all international flights in Chengdu will be relocated to Tianfu International Airport, establishing an "air corridor" for direct flights from central China to Europe and truly opening a "new national gateway" in the southwestern hinterland.
A fireworks display was held to celebrate the completion and acceptance of the airport terminal.
From an aerial view, the terminal resembles two Sun Birds, wings spread ready to take flight, continuing the ancient Shu civilization of over 3,000 years in a new form.
Between the terminals, nine transportation modes—including high-speed rail, urban rail, and buses—are directly accessible, enabling seamless transfers with ease.
As a smart airport, the runways extending from the terminal are embedded with various sensors to monitor settlement, humidity, temperature, and other data in real time, providing early warnings during critical phases of takeoff and landing to ensure flight safety.
Planes taking off from these smart runways will connect to hundreds of domestic and international cities via 241 domestic routes and numerous international routes.
Within just six months of operation, Tianfu International Airport's passenger traffic surpassed 80% of its competitors among China's 248 civil airports.
Please view horizontally: Chengdu International (Regional) Air Passenger and Cargo Channel Planning Diagram.
Chengdu has implemented an integrated planning and layout for the flight routes of both Tianfu and Shuangliu airports.
Near the airport, a planned railway freight station will directly connect to the Chengdu-Europe Express and the entire southern Sichuan rail network. In addition to railways, roadways like the Chengdu-Jianyang Expressway are also extending toward the airport.
Old and new, fast and slow—transportation mediums born in different eras now gather on the land of the Eastern New Area, endowing it with a new mission.
North of the airport, aviation logistics parks such as SF Express and Mapletree are gradually taking shape, and Sichuan's first airport-integrated bonded zone will soon be completed here, making Chengdu's Eastern New Area a key part of the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
An aviation metropolis is rising from the ground.
Beyond the logistics and trade industrial parks adjacent to the airport, it also includes more distant complexes like the Future Medical City and the Western Financial Innovation Center. These will accelerate the growth of high-end manufacturing industries such as aviation maintenance and AI robotics, as well as industries highly reliant on air transport, like electronics, pharmaceuticals, and cross-border e-commerce.
This emerging wave not only impacts industries but also integrates into people's daily lives.
At the Future City Experience Center, people can immerse themselves in a more livable urban future, while venues like Zhiye Library and Dong·Yi Art Museum offer a taste of diverse cultural and artistic influences from across the world.
The Eastern New Area not only carries the expectations of Chengdu-Chongqing coordinated development but also embodies people's aspirations for a better life.
With a comprehensive transportation system, stunning natural landscapes, and vibrant hub-driven economies, the Eastern New Area has now transformed into a truly modern integrated transportation hub.
Through this new hub, the endless mountains and hills east of Chengdu may become smooth passages.
Through this new hub, Chengdu—a city neither coastal nor bordering other countries—can extend its reach to the world.
- Content Creation Team -
Proofreaders | Qingliu, Wang Logic & Wu Xintian
【References】Scroll up and down to view
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