40 Fun Facts About Chengdu

Jiaozi, first issued in Song-dynasty Chengdu, are regarded as the world's earliest what?

Paper money grew out of notes issued by Sichuan merchant houses, and when several of them went bankrupt the Song government took over the printing in 1023.

Sichuan opera, a staple of Chengdu teahouses, is famous for bian lian, the instant changing of what?

Masks vanish with the swipe of a fan or a turn of the head, a secret that performers traditionally passed down only within their own families.

Chengdu's New Century Global Center, one of Earth's largest structures, houses which indoor attraction?

An artificial beach of 5,000 square metres sits inside the water park, facing a 150-metre screen that plays sunrises and sunsets along a fake horizon.

Chengdu has one of China's lowest yearly totals of what, getting less than much of Northern Europe?

Sunshine reaches Chengdu for only about 1,000 hours a year, because the mountains ringing the Sichuan Basin hold fog and haze over the city.

Which fiery Chengdu dish is named after the pockmarked old woman said to have created it?

Mapo tofu joins 'ma', for pockmarks, with 'po', for an old woman, and records tie the dish to the Chen family's eatery beside a Chengdu bridge.

Besides tea and massage, which grooming service do Chengdu's teahouses famously offer at the table?

Ear cleaning is offered right at the table in Chengdu's teahouses, where regulars settle into bamboo chairs over jasmine tea for hours.

Which Chinese novel was first serialised in Chengdu's Science Fiction World magazine in 2006?

The Three-Body Problem ran in the monthly in 2006, two years before it came out as a book, and the magazine has been based in Chengdu since 1979.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding began in 1987 with six pandas obtained in which way?

Rescued from the wild, the six founders started a breeding programme that had recorded 124 panda births by 2008.

Which Nationalist leader flew from Chengdu to Taiwan in December 1949 as Communist troops closed in?

Chiang Kai-shek had directed the defence from a military academy in Chengdu, the last major mainland city his government held, before leaving with his son.

Chengdu's cooking relies on chilli peppers, which reached China only in the 1500s and are native to where?

The Americas are the chilli's home, so the heat now tied to Sichuan cooking is a late arrival, while the tingling Sichuan peppercorn had been used there for centuries.

Which tile game fills Chengdu's teahouses and sunny pavements, played by simpler rules than in Canton?

Mahjong is so woven into Chengdu life that business deals are often negotiated over the tiles.

Which medieval traveller wrote about a Chengdu bridge that stood where the covered Anshun Bridge is today?

Marco Polo described an earlier bridge on the site; floods destroyed several successors, and the covered span finished in 2003 holds a large restaurant.

A giant Cultural Revolution-era statue of which leader overlooks Tianfu Square in central Chengdu?

Mao Zedong's statue went up around 1968, when the last buildings of a Ming princely palace on the site were torn down to make way for an exhibition hall.

Which neighbouring megacity was governed from Chengdu as part of Sichuan until it was split off in 1997?

Chongqing became a municipality answering directly to the central government, a change meant to speed the development of China's poorer western regions.

UNESCO's Creative Cities Network lists Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, as a City of which creative field?

Gastronomy won Chengdu the title for a food culture built on chillies and tingling peppercorns, served everywhere from street stalls to hot pot halls.

Sichuan pepper, which gives Chengdu food its tingle, is not a true pepper but shares a plant family with which fruits?

Citrus plants share the rue family with Sichuan pepper, whose husks carry a compound that makes the lips buzz and go numb rather than burn.

Which peanut-studded stir-fry is believed to be named after Ding Baozhen, a 19th-century governor of Sichuan?

Kung Pao chicken borrows his court title, Gongbao, which is why the dish was renamed during the Cultural Revolution to cut its link with the imperial system.

Dan dan noodles, a Chengdu street-food classic, take their name from which item used by the vendors who sold them?

A carrying pole rested on the vendor's shoulder, with baskets of noodles and sauce hanging from either end.

Fuqi feipian, a cold Chengdu dish of thinly sliced beef and offal, is named after which pair who sold it?

A husband and wife, Guo Zhaohua and Zhang Tianzheng, made the dish famous in the 1930s, and despite the 'lung' in its name it rarely contains any.

Which Tang dynasty poet wrote some 240 poems while living in a thatched cottage beside a Chengdu stream?

Du Fu arrived in 759 as a refugee from rebellion in the north, and the site of his hut is now a 24-acre park and museum.

Chengdu's nickname Rongcheng recalls which flower, planted along the city walls by a 10th-century king?

Hibiscus was planted on the walls by order of Meng Chang, last king of Later Shu, and the nickname lives on in the name of the football club Chengdu Rongcheng.

Chengdu is often called the only major Chinese city to have kept which thing unchanged for over 2,000 years?

Its name is attested as far back as the Warring States period, though the meaning is unclear; one old tale reads the two characters as 'become a capital'.

The Sun and Immortal Birds ornament, found at Chengdu's Jinsha site in 2001 and now the city's logo, is made of what?

Gold foil, beaten wafer-thin some 3,000 years ago, forms a ring of four birds circling a sun, a design also used as the symbol of China's cultural heritage.

Chengdu's Wuhou Shrine honours which chancellor of Shu Han, a byword in China for brilliant strategy?

Zhuge Liang's temple stands beside the tomb of the emperor he served, so ruler and minister are honoured in one shrine, a rarity in China.

Which warlord, a hero of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, ruled the state of Shu Han from Chengdu as its first emperor?

Liu Bei declared himself emperor in 221, saying he meant to keep the Han dynasty's line alive, and his tomb still lies in Chengdu.

Which irrigation system near Chengdu, built around 256 BC and still in use, controls the Min River without a dam?

Dujiangyan splits the river with a levee and a channel cut through a mountain; a dam was ruled out because Qin wanted the waterway kept open for its military boats.

The J-20 'Mighty Dragon', developed by Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, is which type of military aircraft?

A stealth fighter built in Chengdu, the J-20 entered service in 2017 and made China the second country to field an operational stealth aircraft.

The Chengdu Hunters esports team played from 2019 to 2022 in the professional league of which video game?

Overwatch's city-based league brought in the Hunters among eight expansion teams for 2019, as one of four Chinese sides in the competition.

Chengdu hosted Worldcon in October 2023, the convention whose members vote for which science fiction prizes?

The Hugo Awards came to Chengdu after the city beat Winnipeg in the 2021 vote on where to hold the convention's 81st edition.

China ordered the US consulate in Chengdu to close in 2020 after Washington shut the Chinese consulate in which city?

Houston's closure was answered within days, ending a US mission that had operated in Chengdu since 1985.

Highway 318's most celebrated stretch climbs west from Chengdu over high mountain passes to which city?

Lhasa is the goal of a route promoted in China as the nation's scenic avenue, crossing river gorges, forests and grasslands on the way.

Which big cat shares the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, in the mountains west of Chengdu, with red pandas?

Snow leopard country overlaps the sanctuaries, a World Heritage Site since 2006 that protects the largest unbroken stretch of giant panda habitat left.

Chengdu's Railway Protection Movement of 1911 helped set off the revolution that ended the rule of which dynasty?

Qing troops sent from Hubei to quell the Sichuan railway protests left Wuhan thinly guarded, giving revolutionaries there the chance to rise.

Which multi-sport event for disciplines left out of the Olympics did Chengdu host in August 2025?

The World Games reached Chengdu two years after the city staged a pandemic-delayed university sports festival first scheduled for 2021.

Han-dynasty Chengdu had an imperial official solely to oversee which luxury product, the source of a city nickname?

Brocade woven in Chengdu was fashionable across Han China, and the office of the Brocade Official left the city its nickname, Brocade City.

Since 2013, direct freight trains from Chengdu have crossed Asia to the city of Łódź in which European country?

Poland's Łódź receives cargo trains that leave Chengdu's Qingbaijiang station and take about 12 days to complete the journey.

Which US bomber staged through airfields around Chengdu in 1944 to strike Japan in Operation Matterhorn?

B-29 Superfortress crews were based in India and only staged through Chengdu, because their fuel and supplies had to be airlifted over the Himalayas.

Which monk, whose journey to India inspired Journey to the West, was ordained in Chengdu in 622?

Xuanzang had fled south to Chengdu as the Sui dynasty collapsed, and the city's Wenshu Monastery holds a relic said to be a piece of his skull.

The magnitude 8 earthquake that shook Chengdu in May 2008 is named after which county at its epicentre?

Wenchuan's town of Yingxiu sat on the epicentre, about 80 km from Chengdu, where the shaking was reported to last two to three minutes.

Chengdu natives Zheng Jie and Yan Zi won two major doubles titles together in 2006 in which sport?

Tennis boomed in their home city after the pair's Australian Open and Wimbledon wins, with more than 700 courts built in Chengdu over the next decade.