Chengdu has never moved: the same grid has been inhabited since the Shu kingdom buried gold sun-birds at Jinsha around 1000 BCE. Trace bronze-age ritual, Three Kingdoms loyalty cults, Tang poetry, Ming princely tombs and the railway protest that toppled an empire.
Discovered by accident in 2001 during construction, this Shu-kingdom ritual site (c. 1200–650 BCE) yielded the Golden Sun Bird disc now used as China's cultural heritage emblem. Open 08:00–18:00, closed Mondays; the excavation hall covers the pits in situ.
Chengdu's best-preserved Tang-founded Chan monastery, rebuilt in 1697 after the Ming–Qing wars destroyed the city. The temple canteen has served monastic vegetarian food since the Qing; grounds open 08:00–17:00, halls hold Song-dynasty stone tablets.
China's only shrine where an emperor and his chancellor are worshipped together: Liu Bei's tomb mound (223 CE) sits beside Zhuge Liang's memorial hall. The 809 CE Triple-Success Stele records the Three Kingdoms cult in Tang calligraphy.
The only Chinese imperial tomb built above ground, holding Wang Jian, who declared himself emperor of Former Shu in 907 after the Tang collapsed. The stone coffin platform carries 24 carved musicians — the fullest surviving record of Tang court orchestra.
A 31.86m obelisk raised in 1913 for protesters shot on 7 September 1911 when Sichuan resisted nationalising its railway. Qing troops left the province to crush them, leaving Wuchang undefended — the uprising that ended the dynasty followed weeks later.
Beneath Tianfu Square lie the foundations of the 1385 Shu Princely Palace, a smaller Forbidden City razed in 1646 and finally demolished in 1968. Excavated wall sections and the Ming-era waterway are displayed in the metro station concourse.
The largest provincial museum in western China, with Han-dynasty tomb bricks showing salt wells and harvest scenes, plus the Zhang Daqian gallery of Dunhuang cave copies made 1941–43. Open 09:00–17:00, closed Mondays; free with passport.
Marco Polo described a great covered bridge over the Jin River here in the 1280s; the current span rebuilt in 2003 follows that form. Hejiangting, first built in 776 CE, marks where the Fu and Nan rivers met and Tang boats set off for the Yangtze.
Tang poet Du Fu fled the An Lushan rebellion here in 759 and wrote 240 surviving poems in four years. The Song rebuilt the site as a shrine in 1078; the garden holds a Qing memorial hall and the oldest printed Du Fu anthology fragments.
Founded in the Wei dynasty and expanded by Emperor Xuanzong when he sheltered in Chengdu in 756; monk Xuanzang was ordained here before travelling to India. Once 96 courtyards of Tang murals, now Qing halls hemmed in by the Taikoo Li mall.
Built by governor Li Bing in 256 BCE without a dam, this weir still waters the Chengdu plain 2,280 years on and made Sichuan the empire's granary. UNESCO-listed; reachable in 40 minutes by high-speed train from Chengdu North.
A 100-year-old teahouse in a Qing temple hall, floors worn into hollows by bamboo chairs, walls still carrying faded Cultural Revolution slogans. Farmers arrive at dawn; the same coal stove has boiled water here since the Republican era.