Chengdu

Chengdu is one of the 24 well-known historical cities approved by the Sichuan provincial committee and the State Council of China. 2,300 years ago, King Kaiming the 1Xth of the Shu State relocated his capital here. In 256BC, the Shu County Governor Li Bing and his son built the Dujiang Dam. Since then the Chengdu plain has never had any flood or drought disasters and its farm and handicraft industries have prospered. The Chengdu plain has hence been referred to as the "Kingdom of Heaven." Since then, Chengdu has become the state capital of Sichuan, and an important political, economic, cultural and military center in the southwest. It was one of the 5 famous cities in Han Dynasty, and the best commercial city second to Yangzhou only in Tang Dynasty. It was also the second largest cosmopolitan city of the North Song Dynasty (960-1127) next to its capital city Bianjing, where Jiaozi, the earliest paper money in the world, was first circulated.

Foreign consulates in Chengdu

Konsulat General von the United States of America Consular District: Chongqing Municipality, the Provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, Autonomous Region of Tibet Office: Consulate Road No.4, 4th section Renming Nan Lu, Chengdu Tel: 0086-28-558 3992 / 558 9642 ; Fax: 0086-28-558 3520.

Wuhou Ancestral Temple

The Wuhou Ancestral Temple is located in the southern suburb Wuhou (a honorable name, meaning: “Martial Sovereign”). The Ancestors temple was dedicated for Chancellor Zhuge Liang of the Shu State (221 – 263 A.D.), one of the three States period (220 – 280 A. D.) and looks back to a long history over a thousand years. Some argue, the temple was built some centuries later, in the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 A. D.). The original time is still unclear. In the early Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644 A. D.) the Wuhou temple became reconstructed as a Zhaolie temple, as an ancestral temple of Liu Bei, the King of the Shu Kingdom. Zhuge Liang is very much known by a lot of Chinese in China, but also by Chinese abroad. That explains why so many ancestor temples can be visited in different cities all over China. If you like to visit one, this is the best.

Irrigation System in Du Jiangyan

The Dujiangyan Dam, about 60 km north-westerly of  Chengdu, is part of a more than  2.000 years old irrigation system at the Minjiang Rriver, a tributary of the Yangtze. Between 306 B. C. to  251 B. C. this project was built under the supervision of the prefect Li Bing and his son, to ensure consistent water supplies. Still today, about 1,2 million acres of farmland are irrigated by this system.