Chongqing

We spent a few days in Chongqing - the largest city you've never heard of. We were told that the metro area holds 32,000,000 people. Kinda makes Chicagoland look like Lincoln.

The city sits at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers a few hundred miles upstream from the Three Gorges Dam. In the photo below, you can see the muddy Yangtze coming in from the right and mixing with the darker Jialing on the left. I was expecting a broad floodplain, but the rivers are deeply entrenched in narrow courses and the city sits on high hills.

The city center is on the peninsula between the two rivers. It extends forever in all directions. Most of the buildings are 20+ story high rise apartment buildings. We didn't see any four-flats like you'd see around Chicago. Even at the edges of the city, high rise buildings are the norm here.

The day we arrived was partly sunny and clear. On top of each apartment building is a penthouse suite with a forest of jungle growth. Chongqing is at the same latitude as Houston and supports tropical trees like palms and bananas. 

The night skyline is spectacular with the ability to look across the river. Each skyscraper is plated in LED lights; at night they turn into ginormous movie screens (or billboards, depending on your viewpoint).