Chongqing - The Mountain is a City, and the City is a Mountain

The mountain city Chongqing is located on hills at the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Jialing River. In the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) and the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220), a city with hills behind and the rivers in front was formed. 

It was built with hills behind on one side and surrounded by water on three sides. There were great elevation differences in the city, successive ascending and descending lanes and corridors were formed, and there were abundant spatial changes. Seen from a distance, buildings' roofs overlap and roads wind up. The city's appearance is very unique, so a splendid nightscape formed.

In the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Dai Ding expanded Chongqing's old city. To meet feng shui requirements for generation and inhibition, he built 17 city gates according to the Nine Tunes and Eight Diagrams, symbolizing "strongly fortification of the city." Among these 17 gates, nine were water gates for laborers to carry water from the two rivers into the city. 

Later, fires occurred frequently in the city. The government office thought it was because open water gates could not contain the element of fire, so it closed eight water gates, hence the proverb, "Among the 17 gates, nine are open and eight are closed." The largest gate among them was the Chaotian Gate with the words "Impregnable Ancient Pass of Chongqing" above it. Because this gate along the Yangtze River flowing to the east faced the capital Nanjing where the emperor lived, local officials received imperial envoys and imperial edicts here, hence the name "Chaotian Gate."