The capital of Sichuan province, in China’s southwest, has a long history, a beautiful environment, and rich culture and has long been known as a “Land of abundance” or Sichuan’s “Suzhou” or “Hangzhou”.

It got its start in mid-500 BC when the ninth emperor of the Kaiming Dynasty of the state of Shu moved his capital from Guangdu Fanxiang (today’s Shuangliu county) to Chengdu.

It covers a 12,100-square-kilometer area, with a central area of 283.86 sq km. It has nine districts and four cities and six counties under its administration and a population of 11.49 million. It sits 500 meters above sea level and has a subtropical humid monsoon climate, with an average annual temperature of 17.5 C. Its forest coverage is 36.15 percent.

Chengdu was the birthplace of the Shu culture and a number of relics from that state that have been unearthed show a highly developed bronze culture going back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Chengdu is famous for its culture, which has had an influence all over China. Even the South Koreans and Japanese have been interested in its Three-Kingdoms culture. Other important cultures are food, leisure, tea, and Taoism.

Chengdu is known as the hometown of the giant panda, an endangered species. The Chengdu Giant Panda Pavilion holds more than 100 giant pandas with financial support from the government.

Tai Ji, the form of exercise and martial arts, is practiced by many of the city’s citizens with encouragement from the local government.

The city was named the best tourist city in China by the UN World Tourism Organization on Feb 8, 2007 thanks to its tourist resources such as Qingcheng Mountain, Xiling Snow Mountain, and Tiantai Mountain, It was also recognized as a “Gourmet Food City” by UNESCO on Feb 28, 2010 because of its traditional Sichuan cuisine and snacks. The city joined UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, making it Asia’s first “Gourmet Food City”.

The State Council has also recognized it as a logistics, business, trade, finance, science, and technology center, and a traffic and communication hub for the west, and it is an important high-tech industrial, modern manufacturing, modern services, and modern agricultural base.

The government has named Chengdu a “Dynamic Economic City”, “Best City for Business”, “Best Tourist City”, and “Model Environmental Protection City” and it has won the UN Habitat Scroll of Honor Award and Thiess International River prize.

The World Bank has called it a “benchmark for investment in inland China” and it was recognized by the State Council as a “Model City for Service Outsourcing” and a pilot for urban-rural, balanced development and reform.

In 2010, Chengdu was forecast to be one of the world’s cities with the fastest growth over the next decade, in a report from Forbes, the American finance magazine. In 2013, the Fortune Global Forum is expected to be held in Chengdu.