Sichuan

Sichuan (四川; Sìchuān; previously known as Szechwan), is a province in the west of the Southern Central Region of China. It is China's fourth most populous province; at 80 million it has about the population of Mexico.

Historically, Sichuan has been mainly an agricultural region, though with a few important cities. Over the past several decades, it has been a major supplier of migrant labour to more prosperous coastal provinces in East China and Southeast China. More recently, Sichuan itself has also been developing rapidly.

Regions

Regions of Sichuan

Aba Prefecture In the central north area of Sichuan, it is a Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture

Ganzi Prefecture In the west of Sichuan, it is a Tibetan autonomous prefecture

South Sichuan Comprises Liangshan Prefecture, which is an Yi autonomous prefecture, and Panzhihua Prefecture

East Sichuan Comprises the capital Chengdu and other major cities of Sichuan

Cities

• Chengdu — the capital of Sichuan with 2,000 years of history, the southeastern part is encircled by small mountains and to the north east is Chengdu Campagna
• Dege — home to an amazing Tibetan library
• Ganzi — rough Tibetan town and launching point for exploring local monasteries
• Kangding — gateway to western Sichuan's Tibetan region
• Langmusi — beautiful Tibetan border town sitting in both Gansu and Sichuan, with two monasteries, horse trekking opportunities and a sky burial site
• Leshan — home of the largest stone carved Buddha in the world
• Songpan — base camp for exploring Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve and the Amdo Tibetan culture
• Xiangcheng — on the high-road to Yunnan
• Xichang

Chongqing Municipality is administratively separate, but culturally and historically still Sichuanese. See List of Chinese provinces and regions.

Other destinations

• Beichuan — memorial city destroyed by earthquake and landslide in 2008, parts of it are open to tourists for viewing the damage and paying respect
• Emeishan National Park
• Hailougou Glacier Park
• Huanglongsi-Jiuzhaigou National Park
• Jianmen Shudao National Park — Jianmen Pass and Ancient Plankway of Shudao
• Kanggar Mountains National Park
• Qingchengshan-Dujiangyan National Park — one of the ancient cradles of Daoism
• Shunan Zhuhai National Park (lit. Bamboo Sea)
• Siguniangshan National Parks

Understand

Climate — See the climate table on Chengdu page

Talk

The native language of most of Sichuan is a variant of Mandarin (Southwest), which differs from standard Mandarin of the north-east significantly in pronunciation, and use of slang which are unique to the area. Nevertheless, native speakers of Mandarin will be able to understand the local dialect albeit with some difficulty. Tibetan is still the mother tongue in most of the highland west, but the region becoming more and more Sinofied. There is a moderate amount of bi-lingual signage in the area. Therefore, many young people in the western regions are bi-lingual in both Tibetan and Mandarin or just speak Mandarin. Qiangic, native to the Qiang minority group, also native to Sichuan, can also be found in isolated parts of western Sichuan. The vast majority of signage is always in Mandarin Chinese characters throughout the province regardless of the ethnic majority in the given area albeit you will see some signage in Tibetan indic script. Many young people in Sichuan's larger cities speak some English.

Get in

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan has a fairly large modern airport with domestic connections to many cities all over China and also some international connections. Internationally you can fly from Europe (KLM), Singapore, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, and many people arrive and depart using the very good air services available.

China has an extensive railway network and Chengdu is well connected to many cities by rail. One recent innovation is a fast train between Chongqing and Chengdu. Chongqing is a very large city which was part of Sichuan until 1997 but now is an independent municipality. Many trains shuttle every day between Chongqing and Chengdu. Not so long ago, the journey took anywhere between 4 and 8 hours depending on stops. Now a fast train (over 200 km per hour) runs several times a day between the two.

Another option is buses. Buses run between Chongqing and Chengdu taking about 4 hours. However, bus travel seems to be less reliable than trains because of road works that are often occurring.

There are also several options of travelling within Sichuan. Many popular tourist destinations such as Leshan and Jiuzhaigou National Park are serviced by buses. The network is quite extensive and the highways are good. Buses also seem to mostly run on time.

Air travel is available within Sichuan if you want to go to Jiuzhaigou National Park which is over 300 kms from Chengdu.

See

• Dacheng Lamo Kerti Gompa — located at Langmusi, temple where traditional Tibetan sky-burials are still practiced
• Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries

Eat

Sichuan cuisine is well-known worldwide, including dishes like Kung Pao Chicken (gong bao ji ding 宮保雞丁) and Twice Cooked Pork (回鍋肉). It is also famously spicy, with liberal use of chilies and the indigenous Sichuan pepper (花椒; huājiāo).

One specialty of the area is the Hot Pot (火锅; Huoguo), a sort of wide-mouthed soup pot into which an assortment of vegetables and thinly sliced meats are dropped to cook. Typically, the pot has two parts separated by a partition; one side is extremely spicy, the other milder.

Sichuan food plays approximately the role in China that Mexican food does in the US or Indian food in the UK. It is found more-or-less everywhere and in every style of restaurant from cheap hole-in-the-wall to very fancy indeed.

Stay safe

Sichuan suffered a catastrophic earthquake in 2008 centered on Wenchuan County, about 100km north of Chengdu. Many towns were nearly completely destroyed and over 80,000 people killed with hundreds of thousands more injured or homeless. Reconstruction is now complete, but there is always a risk of another quake.

Many of West Sichuan's main attractions are located at altitudes above 3,000 meters and thus altitude sickness is a threat. Make sure to monitor your health and take it easy for a day or two if moving from the lowlands to higher elevations.

To help combat this sickness, many local Chinese eat medicine known as Hong Jing Tian. These are red capsules that the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army use to help them quickly adjust to altitude conditions in the Western Chinese provinces. Local tour companies will have a ready supply of this medicine if you ask.

There is also tension in Western Sichuan between the Chinese government and the mainly Tibetan people there, and travel restrictions may apply to this area. See the warnings under Tibet.