If we stick to surprising infrastructures, China has a good handful that end up leaving you breathless. Bridges that cross entire bays, trains that connect cities at 350 km/h, airports built in record time…And Tianfu Avenue, in Chengdu, also has a special place in this list of mega-constructions. At 150 kilometers long, it is the longest central urban axis in the world. And its history says a lot about how China understands 21st century urbanism.
Where does the name come from? Tianfu refers to the historical nickname of Sichuan province: “Land of Plenty.” A region known since ancient times for its fertility and cultural wealth, and whose capital, Chengdu, has been one of the great economic engines of the west of the country for decades.
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ORa normal street that was growing. In 1960, the then vice mayor of Chengdu supervised the construction of the Renmin Road, a road 64 meters wide. In 1997, the arrival of the Tianfu interchange, a large elevated infrastructure that passed over the railway tracks in an arc, extended that artery to the south and marked the beginning of what we know today as Tianfu Avenue. In 2004, the municipal government formalized its name and divided it into northern, central and southern sections, although the true transformation would come later.
de avenue to metropolitan corridor. In 2012, Chengdu proposed something much more ambitious: turning Tianfu into a “hundred-mile central hub.” The idea was to connect not just neighborhoods or districts, but entire cities. In 2016, the project was expanded further: the route would reach Deyang in the north and Renshou, in Meishan, in the south. The final result is a 150 kilometer road that crosses four different administrative territories.
A colossus of cement and metal. In some sections reaches 14 or 16 lanesincluding expressways, local lanes and dividing strips. It has wide sidewalks, bike lanes, garden areas and overpasses at the busiest intersections. In the high-tech zone section, for example, it was renovated in 2022 to become an urban linear park with eight smaller parks, six kilometers of promenade and two large entrance nodes. And all this without interrupting traffic on one of the busiest arteries in the city.
What there is along the route. Along its route there are also emblematic points of interest. For example, the New Century Global Center, considered one of the individual buildings largest in the world by constructed area; Xinglong Lake, with a surface area of more than 66 hectares, known as the “green heart of the city”; or the Tianfu interchange mentioned above, a two-kilometer-long structure whose “A”-shaped pylon reaches 78 meters high. At its top is the emblem of the Sun Bird, a symbol of the ancient Jinsha culture.
Its economic role. Tianfu Avenue is not a typical infrastructure project. It is, above all, an instrument of economic development. It connects the Chengdu Plain Economic Zone with the Southern Sichuan Economic Zone, two of the most dynamic poles in the region. Along its route there are technology parks, multinational headquarters, financial centers and the Tianfu New Area, a state development zone created with the intention of attracting innovation and sustainable urbanism.
According to a report of Southwest Jiaotong University, the avenue is called to be “the north-south economic axis of Sichuan”, beyond its function as a highway connecting cities.
The project is not finished. In January 2025, the Renshou section was opened to traffic, completing a key section of the route. In January 2023, Meishan and Zigong they signed an agreement to extend the avenue even further south, passing through Luzhou and reaching Jiangjin, in Chongqing. If this project prospers, the total length of the corridor could exceed 400 kilometers, becoming a fast axis that connects the two great poles of southwest China: Chengdu and Chongqing.
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