Chengdu

Cottage of Du Fu: bamboo grove

Chengdu, Wade-Giles romanization Ch’eng-tu, city and capital of Sichuan sheng (province), China. Chengdu, in central Sichuan, is situated on the fertile Chengdu Plain, the site of Dujiangyan, one of China’s most ancient and successful irrigation systems, watered by the Min River. The system and nearby Mount Qingcheng, an early centre of Daoism, were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. The irrigation system, first set up during the Qin dynasty (221–207 bce), diverted half the waters of the Min River eastward to irrigate the plain through a dense network of channels. This system has survived basically in its original form and enables the area to support what has been claimed to be one of the densest agrarian populations anywhere in the world. Pop. (2002 est.) city, 2,663,971; (2005 est.) urban agglom., 4,065,000.