Discover Chongqing
Jiefangbei (Liberation Monument) Square
解放碑
A 1940s victory monument now dwarfed by a ring of glass towers and luxury malls - the clearest single image of what has happened to Chinese cities in forty years. The surrounding pedestrian streets are Chongqing's commercial heart.
The story
What makes this place special
The monument in the middle of the square has changed its name three times. A timber column called the 'Spirit Fortress' was raised here during the war against Japan, around 1940–41, as a morale marker. After the war it was rebuilt in reinforced concrete as the Monument to the Victory of the War of Resistance: work started on 31 October 1946 and it was completed in August 1947. In 1950 the Southwest Military and Administrative Commission renamed it the People's Liberation Monument, which is where 'Jiefangbei' comes from. It stands 27.5 metres high overall, an octagonal column with an internal stair to a lookout at the top (not open to visitors).
What you’ll discover
A pedestrianised cross of streets around a stone column, hemmed in by department stores and office towers. The monument is small and the buildings are large, which is the point — this is the oldest centre of the city and the commercial heart of it. The interest is the surrounding streets rather than the square itself: the alleys behind the main frontages still hold noodle shops and hotpot, and Hongyadong is a short walk downhill to the north.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Treat this as a base, not a sight. Fifteen minutes at the monument is enough; the value is that Hongyadong, the Xinhua Road cableway station and the Shibati quarter are all walkable from here.
- The eating is in the lanes off the square, not on it. Bayi Road Haochijie (Good Food Street) runs off the south-east side and is where most of the local snack stalls are.
- Everything around the square is on a slope even though the square itself is flat. Check the contour, not just the distance, before deciding to walk somewhere.
- Evening is when it looks like itself — the whole district is lit and busy until late.
- Ignore the tall-building observation decks being sold nearby; the views from Eling Park and Nanshan are better and cheaper.
When to come
After dark, when the district is lit and the street food is out. Daytime is a shopping precinct with a monument in it.
Getting around
The square and the pedestrian streets immediately around it are flat, paved and fully step-free, with underground metro access by lift — this is one of the easiest places in Chongqing to move around. The moment you leave the pedestrian zone in any direction you are on a steep hill, so plan departures by taxi or metro rather than on foot.
Worth knowing before you go
Go up to the free observation terrace on the upper floors of one of the surrounding malls for the monument-dwarfed-by-towers shot, and come at night when the LED facades are running.
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