Chongqing (Chinese Postal Map Romanization: Chungking) is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities (the other three are Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin), and the only such municipality in inland China.
The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the sub-provincial city administration that was part of Sichuan province. As of November 2010, the municipality had a population of 28,846,200, although the urbanized area is estimated to have a population of only 6 or 7 million. Chongqing is the largest direct-controlled municipality, and comprises 19 districts, 15 counties, and 4 autonomous counties.
The official abbreviation of the city, (Yú), was approved by the State Council on 18 April 1997. Chongqing was also a municipality of the Republic of China administration, serving as its wartime capital during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Its abbreviated name is derived from the old name of a part of the Jialing River that runs through Chongqing and feeds into the Yangtze River.
Chongqing has a significant history and culture and serves as the economic centre of the upstream Yangtze basin. It is the major manufacturing centre, and a transportation hub, for Southwest China, and in a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, was recently named as one of the 13 emerging megacities, or megalopolises, in China
