Southwestern China in the context of "Kunming"

Chongqing is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the Central People's Government, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is the only direct-administered municipality located deep inland. The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria, which includes several disjunct urban areas in addition to Chongqing proper. Due to its classification, the municipality of Chongqing is the largest city proper in the world by population, though it is not the most populous urban area.

The municipality of Chongqing is the only Chinese city with a resident population of over 30 million; however, this number includes its large rural population. In 2020, Chongqing surpassed Shanghai as China's largest municipality by urban population; as of 2023, it had an urban population of 22.87 million. The municipality contains 26 districts, 8 counties, and 4 autonomous counties. The city served as the wartime capital for the Republic of China (ROC) during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). On 14 March 1997, the current municipality was separated from the surrounding province of Sichuan, with the goal of furthering development in the central and western parts of the country.

The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Southwestern China, Northeastern India, and Bangladesh. It is known as the Brahmaputra or Luit in Assamese, Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, and Jamuna River in East Bengal. By itself, it is the 9th largest river in the world by discharge, and the 15th longest.

It originates in the Manasarovar Lake region, near Mount Kailash, on the northern side of the Himalayas in Burang County of Tibet where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The Brahmaputra flows along southern Tibet to break through the Himalayas in great gorges (including the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon) and into Arunachal Pradesh. It enters India near the village of Gelling in Arunachal Pradesh and flows southwest through the Assam Valley as the Brahmaputra and south through Bangladesh as the Jamuna (not to be confused with the Yamuna of India). In the vast Ganges Delta, it merges with the Ganges, popularly known as the Padma in Bangladesh, and becomes the Meghna and ultimately empties into the Bay of Bengal.

Western China (中国西部 or 华西) is the west of China. It consists of Southwestern China and Northwestern China. In the definition of the Chinese government, Western China covers six provinces (Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai), three autonomous regions (Tibet, Ningxia, and Xinjiang), and one direct-administered municipality (Chongqing).

Sichuan, previously romanized as Szechwan or Szechuan, is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Chengdu, and its population stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai and Gansu to the north, Shaanxi and Chongqing to the east, Guizhou and Yunnan to the south, and Tibet to the west.

During antiquity, Sichuan was home to the kingdoms of Ba and Shu until their incorporation by the Qin. During the Three Kingdoms era (220–280), Liu Bei's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion and the area's subsequent Manchu conquest. However, the area recovered to become one of China's most productive by the 19th century. During World War II, Chongqing served as the temporary capital of the Republic of China, and was heavily bombed. It was one of the last mainland areas captured by the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Civil War, and was divided into four parts from 1949 to 1952, with Chongqing restored two years later. It suffered gravely during the Great Chinese Famine (1959–1961) but remained China's most-populous province until Chongqing was again separated from it in 1997.

Southwestern Mandarin (Chinese: 西南官话; pinyin: Xīnán Guānhuà), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (Chinese: 上江官话; pinyin: Shàngjiāng Guānhuà), is a Mandarin Chinese dialect spoken in much of Southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northern part of Guangxi and some southern parts of Shaanxi and Gansu.

Southwestern Mandarin is spoken by roughly 260 million people. If considered a language distinct from central Mandarin, it would be the eighth-most spoken language by native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin itself, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic and Bengali.

Yunnan is an inland province in Southwestern China, spanning approximately 394,000 km (152,000 sq mi) and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, autonomous regions of Guangxi and Tibet, as well as Southeast Asian countries Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, and Laos. Yunnan is China's fourth least developed province based on disposable income per capita in 2014.

Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the Northwest and low elevations in the Southeast. Most of the population lives in the eastern part of the province. In the west, the altitude can vary from the mountain peaks to river valleys as much as 3,000 m (9,800 ft). Yunnan is rich in natural resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. Of the approximately 30,000 species of higher plants in China, Yunnan has perhaps 17,000 or more. Yunnan's reserves of aluminium, lead, zinc and tin are the largest in China, and there are also major reserves of copper and nickel. Historically, the southwestern Silk Road to Bhitargarh in Bangladesh passed through modern Yunnan.

The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle and a ringed tail. Its head-to-body length is 51–63.5 cm (20.1–25.0 in) with a 28–48.5 cm (11.0–19.1 in) tail, and it weighs between 3.2 and 15 kg (7.1 and 33.1 lb). It is well adapted to climbing due to its flexible joints and curved semi-retractile claws.

The red panda was formally described in 1825. The two recognised subspecies, the Himalayan and the Chinese red panda, genetically diverged about 250,000 years ago. The red panda's place on the evolutionary tree has been debated, but modern genetic evidence places it in close affinity with raccoons, weasels, and skunks. It is not closely related to the giant panda, which is a bear, though both possess elongated wrist bones or "false thumbs" used for grasping bamboo. The evolutionary lineage of the red panda (Ailuridae) stretches back around 25 to 18 million years ago, as indicated by extinct fossil relatives found in Eurasia and North America.

Guizhou is an inland province in Southwestern China with its capital and largest city as Guiyang, located in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to the south, Yunnan to the west, Sichuan to the northwest, the municipality of Chongqing to the north, and Hunan to the east. Guizhou has a humid subtropical climate. It covers a total area of 176,200 square kilometers and consists of six prefecture-level cities and three autonomous prefectures. The population of Guizhou stands at 38.5 million, ranking 18th among the provinces in China.

The Dian Kingdom, which inhabited the present-day area of Guizhou, was annexed by the Han dynasty in 106 BC. Guizhou was formally made a province in 1413 during the Ming dynasty. After the overthrow of the Qing in 1911 and following the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party took refuge in Guizhou during the Long March between 1934 and 1935. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong promoted the relocation of heavy industry into inland provinces such as Guizhou, to better protect them from potential foreign attacks.