Southwest China
Hongyadong & Chongqing Night Skyline
洪崖洞·重庆夜景 · Chongqing, Chongqing
The cliffside stilt-house complex and spectacular layered night skyline of China's 'mountain city'.
Chongqing is built on steep hills at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, famous for its gravity-defying 3-D layout of rooftop roads and monorails. Hongyadong is a terraced riverside complex of traditional stilt houses (diaojiaolou) that glows like a film set at night, while cable cars, river cruises and 'lollipop' skyscraper viewing decks show off the city's lights.
Chongqing was a wartime capital (1937–1945) and became a mega-city, famed for adapting to its rugged terrain with dramatic infrastructure. Hongyadong, reconstructing traditional stilt-house architecture on the cliff, opened in 2006 as a cultural-commercial landmark and became a viral sensation for its anime-like night views.
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