Kaizhou

Kaizhou is a large district in northeastern Chongqing Municipality at the southern foot of the Daba Mountains, with a registered population of around 1.65 million and roughly 1.19 million permanent residents, the vast majority of them Han Chinese. Its economy centers on food processing and agriculture, marketed under the "Kaizhou Golden Kitchen" regional brand, alongside spring citrus, tribute rice, and other mountain produce sold across Chongqing. The district's signature attraction is Hanfeng Lake, an artificial lake created by the Three Gorges Dam's backwater that is now a national wetland park with over 40 kilometers of lakeside trails and thousands of wintering waterfowl. Nearby, Kaizhou Juzi Garden recreates imperial-exam-era architecture, including a Confucian temple and the Wenfeng Pagoda, celebrating the district's scholarly history, while remote Xuebao Mountain shelters ancient stands of the rare Thuja sutchuenensis, sometimes called a living fossil among conifers. Kaizhou tea has a long pedigree too: Longzhu tea from Dunhao township was once presented to the imperial court as tribute during the Tang dynasty. The Xi'an-Chongqing high-speed railway's Kaizhou station is under construction and expected to open by around 2028, which will connect this long-isolated district to the national rail network for the first time.

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