Chongqing is the Chinese Mainland’s true cyberpunk city. Here, the metro cuts through apartment blocks, escalators double up as streets and the skyline is stacked vertically. On Chinese social media, it’s even referred to as an “8D city”. In this case, the hype is fair.
One of the country’s four provincial-level municipalities – alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – Chongqing sits at the junction of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, and is home to more than 32 million people. The terrain is so steep and layered that conventional urban planning never stood a chance – a quality that can feel uncannily familiar to visitors from Hong Kong.
What’s perhaps less well known is that Chongqing is also one of the country’s fashion and lifestyle centres, ranking consistently in the top tier of Vogue Business in China’s New Fashion Capital Index in recent years. But shopping in Chongqing isn’t merely decorative. There’s plenty to explore, including local streetwear brands, converted factories and even an independent record store on a mountain.