Of the four municipalities directly under the Chinese central government, Chonqing is the only one that is located at the joining sector of eastern China and western China, while the other there, Beijing, Tianjing and Shanhai, are all located in eastern China. With a population of over 30 million and an area of 82,000 square kilometers crisscrossed by mountains and rivers, Chongqing is richly endowed with tourist resource. The city proper covers and area of more than 600 square kilometers, from Tongula Mountain in the east to Zhongliang Mountain in the west, and from Jingkou Township in the north to Xiaonanhai in the south. The downtown area, embraced by the Yangtze and Jialing rivers that join at Chaotianmen, is a city built on hillside and surrounded by rivers, and therefore, Chongqing is also known as a mountain city.

Chongqing's steep slopes, back alleys and bicycle-free streets immediately set the city apart from others in China, though things have changed from the heady 1890s when George Morrison , an Australian journalist who later became an adviser to the mendacious warlord Yuan Shikai, described an enormously rich port with mighty walls, temples, pagodas and great public buildings - seemingly financed by the surrounding fields of opium poppies. Wealth is still visible, and even the basic, congested street plan seems unaltered, but the opium trade, old buildings and walls have since fallen victim to relentless expansion, and today Chongqing is best characterized by inner-city development and urban sprawl.