Chongqing, China—a city of nearly 18.2 million people—remains virtually unknown to many travelers outside Asia, despite being one of the most-distinctive urban landscapes in the world.
That was the central message from YouTuber and polyglot Arieh Smith (@xiaomanyc), during a panel discussion at Newsweek’s inaugural New Destinations Travel & Tourism Summit earlier this month.
“The story of Chongqing is a great, great story. It’s the world’s biggest city that you haven’t heard of,” said Smith, who developed near-native fluency in Mandarin Chinese while living and studying in China. His experiences exploring the city left a lasting impression, particularly its unusual geography and sci-fi aesthetic.
“It’s built on mountains, so it has the most-crazy geography,” Smith said. He added that visitors are often “shocked to see a city nearly three times the size of New York,” which has a population of around 8.8 million.
Many are left wondering “how does this exist in the middle of China” and how they’ve “never heard about this crazy cyberpunk, sci-fi destination … that young people can get really excited about and interested in.”
As an online creator who shares multilingual content and global travel experiences with millions of viewers, Smith emphasized the role of digital platforms in spotlighting lesser-known destinations. “I think that social media can really be a force for exploration of these unknown destinations,” he said.
Chongqing, which the Lonely Planet travel guide says is “the most important city in western China and the economic engine of the upper Yangzi [Yangtze],” is increasingly recognized for its dramatic vertical layout and rugged topography. The guide praises its “fantastic food and charismatic geography,” noting its position at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers as a gateway to the scenic Three Gorges region.
Chongqing’s built environment defies standard urban planning. The Western China International Communication Organization describes it as “internationally renowned as the ‘8D Magic City’,” citing its blend of steep terrain, suspended bridges, transit systems that slice through buildings, and rooftop playgrounds.
“This city, uniquely perched on mountains and divided by rivers, defies traditional urban planning with its awe-inspiring infrastructure and innovative transportation solutions,” the group says.
Among its most-photographed landmarks is the Hongya Cave, a cliffside commercial and cultural complex that fuses traditional Chinese architecture with modern retail. Other signature features include football fields built above traffic arteries and skybridges and monorails linking dense clusters of towers—an architectural response to the city’s spatial constraints.
A May 2022 study in Urban Studies contextualized these features within the framework of “extreme vertical density,” describing Chongqing as a standout case of post-socialist urban transformation.
The city, the study adds, has “become ‘spectacles’ in themselves, widely photographed and discussed on social media,” and exemplifies “verticality as an everyday, historically grounded and contested environment.”
For Smith, Chongqing’s appeal lies in both its physical form and its capacity to surprise. As travelers increasingly seek novel experiences, Chongqing’s blend of scale, innovation, and visual drama could turn this lesser-known megacity into a top-tier global destination.
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