Chongqing gained online fame as the ‘8D city’ due to its urban areas built on mountainous terrain, and has become a global tourist hotspot
Behind the viral rise of China’s ‘cyberpunk city’
Behind the viral rise of China’s ‘cyberpunk city’Llewellyn CheungPublished: 9:15am, 26 Apr 2026Chongqing, also known as ‘the most confusing city’ has become one of China’s most popular tourism attraction spots in recent years.
Many Chinese and international social media content creators have hopped on the viral trend of making videos about the city’s bewildering, mountainous urban landscape.
The South China Morning Post’s Llewellyn Cheung travelled to Chongqing to meet a local content creator and tourism experts to find out what the city is really like beyond the viral trends, and why its success is so hard to replicate elsewhere in China.
