Shapingba 

Eling Park

Hetang Road

East section of Bayi Road called Dayanggou before

E. Liberation Rd.

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Place names not only can indicate location, but also have many beautiful legends with thick homesickness.

How many place names are there in Chongqing? According to Chongqing Civil Affairs Bureau, since the launch of Second National Place Names Census in January 2014, there are 455,020 place names in Chongqing. For mountains and rivers in Chongqing, it is an important feature of Chongqing place name culture that places are named after mountains and waters.

Named after rivers

The number of place names named after mountain is not comparable to that named after rivers.

Among districts and counties in Chongqing, “jiang” occurs in Qijiang, Dianjiang and Qianjiang. Many Districts and counties are related to water, such as Wuxi, Pengshui, Yubei (to the north of Yushui), Fuling (Emperor's Tomb by Fushui), Youyang (to the north of Youshui), Hechuan, Nanchuan (the original meaning of “chuan” is river), Nan’an (a bank by the water), Daudukou (a ferry by the water). (Note: “jiang”, “xi” or “shui” means river in Chinese.)

“The number of place names related to water exceeds one-third of that in Chongqing.” Li Zhengquan, an expert on Chongqing place name culture, said that Chongqing was called Jiangzhou and Yuzhou in ancient times, which were both named after water. “The Jiang is Yangtze River, and the Yu is Jialing River.”

“Five Famous Mountains” in main urban districts

Chongqing is a mountain city and some people call five mountains in the main urban districts as the “Five Famous Mountains” of Chongqing. Among them, Tieshanping, Gele Mountain, Jinyun Mountain, Nanshan Mountain and Eling Mountain are respectively the mountains in the east, west, north, south and at the center. The five mountains have made their marks on the place names.

“Now, there is no street named after mountain in the old urban area, but place names such as Shibati and Leijiapo are still related to mountain.” Li Zhengquan introduced that the old urban area is a mountain, in addition to Tongyuan Gate in the west, citizens must climb a large slope to main districts from any gate.

Li Zhengquan recalled that there were many stone stairs in Chaotianmen before, which had made many visitors tired to climb. Out of the Tongyuan Gate, the number of place name with mountain increased, for example, Pipa Mountain, Eling, Songshan Mountain, Wutai Mountain, Fengming Mountain, Shizi Mountain, Wangjia Mountain…

“Ba” and “Ping” (flat ground) are the most common in place names

Chongqing is a mountain and water city with various landforms. These landforms not only bring colorful features to place names, but also add a strong local feature to them. Among various place names in Chongqing, “ba” and “ping” are the most common words like Shapingba, Yangjiaping…

Why there are so many place names with “ba” and “ping” in Chongqing? Li Zhengquan explained that “ba” and “ping” are relatively flat which cannot be compared with flatlands in plain cities. Although there are many place names with “shan” (mountain), the number of place names with “ba” is even more. As long as there is a small piece of flat ground, it may be called as “ba”, such as Shapingba and Guangyangba.

“Ping is different from ba. Although ping is also flat as ba, ping is a highland divided by river valleys, with escarpment or steps by side, which is called tableland geologically.” Li Zhengquan said that tablelands in Chongqing are more than flat ground, causing more names with ping, such as Nanping, Daping, Yangjiaping, etc. Ping is higher from the river and is not threatened by floods, which makes it the main residential area.

Taking 14 areas of main districts in 1980s for example, except Shangxinjie, Zhongliangshan and several other place names, most of them are distributed on “ping” or “ba”.

Less place names with directions

Chongqing people seldom say north, south, east and west speaking of directions. They generally use landmark buildings as a reference to turn left, turn right or go straight. If you mention directions like east, west, north and south, perhaps many Chongqing people will be at a loss.

There are no orographic barriers in plain cities with most east-west or north-south streets. Chongqing is both a mountain city and also a water city. Roads by mountains or by waters, curved and winded, up and down, are difficult to be marked with direction words. Therefore, there are very few place names such as south road, north road, east street or west street.

Li Zhengquan said that Jiangbei (literally, to the north of river) is not opposite to Nan’an (literally, south bank), even irrelevant. Although Chongqing people has a poor sense of directions, the directions do exist objectively. There are still place names named after directions, such as East Liberation Road, West Liberation Road, Nanping East Road, Nanping West Road, Jianxin South Road, Jianxin North Road, etc. "It is often just a general direction, not the exact east, west, south and north."

Some place names “tell lies”. Li Zhengquan said, "Such as Chaodong Road, which is not the Chaotianmen East Road, but the section from Chaotianmen to Dongshuimen (“dong” means east in Chinese). Such roads seemingly named after directions may puzzle strangers. (Translated by Mao Qiao, Fathom Language Limited)