Forgotten World (85): Chongqing
It is a city that, with a population of 10 million, is already larger than many countries around the world. But it is the fastest growing city on earth and by 2020 its population is expected to have doubled to 20 million. But hardly anyone has heard of it. It is the city of Chongqing in China. Thanks to the world’s biggest hydro-electric dam, which will open in two years, and the £114 billion the Chinese government has spent on infrastructure in the past seven years, Chongqing will open up the western Chinese heartlands and become a central force in what may become the world’s most powerful country.
Even by the standards of the giant construction site that is modern-day China, Chongqing’s building frenzy is impressive. More transport links have been built here in the past four years than in the previous hundred. More new floor space is being completed than in Shanghai. As well as eight new railways, eight highways and eight bridges, the port is in the midst of a £1.15 billion redevelopment and the airport’s capacity is planned to quintuple by 2010.
Set in the middle reaches of the Yangtze, this former trading centre and treaty port has long been the economic hub of western China. However, after its government was given municipal control of surrounding territory the size of many countries, it has grown and grown, becoming what is now the world’s biggest municipality with 31 million residents (more people than Iraq, Peru or Malaysia).