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Big Brother is not just watching in the Chinese megacity of Chongqing – he is everywhere, all at once.
Boasting a population of 30million people, and stretching across 31,815 square miles, it is one of the largest cities in the world, and even bigger than entire countries – like Scotland.
What also sets the former wartime capital of China apart is the sprawling CCTV network that operates inside.
Stepping inside Chongqing, every street, alleyway and apartment building is watched by cameras.
The way it works is that neighbourhoods are divided into a grid-like pattern with 15-20 households per square.
Each grid has a monitor which reports back on residents’ activities to local committees.
A report to the Chinese National People’s Congress from earlier in March offers a glimpse of how this system works and how Chinese authorities are ramping up surveillance even further.
It said another 27,900 surveillance cameras alongside 245 sensors were installed as part of the comprehensive ‘grid’ surveillance, Radio Free Asia reported.
Cities in China are under the heaviest surveillance system in the world, with estimated 626 million cameras to 1.43 billion people.
But Chongqing beats even science and technology hubs like Beijing and Shanghai, with almost 2.6million cameras in the city equating to one camera for every six residents.
It is all part of a sophisticated mass surveillance project, conducted by the Chinese government through Internet surveillance, CCTV and through other digital technologies.
Expert: Constant surveillance has become a two-way street
Metro spoke to Dr Xiaobai Shen, a senior lecturer in international and Chinese business at the University of Edinburgh.
She’s lived in the UK for more than 30 years, and in the last decade her research has focused on advancing its digital data-based technologies.
The social credit system is one of these – a national record rolled out in 2014 which tracks the trustworthiness of people and businesses, in the hope of regulating and improving behaviour and reducing crime.
So while surveillance, including in Chongqing, feeds into that system, it is starting to be seen as a more positive thing in China rather than an invasion of privacy or intrusion.
Dr Shen told Metro about the origins of the system: ‘At that time there was rampant commercial fraud, economic losses, there was government judicial mistrust, and third was public safety issues and food related scandals, like the melamine tainted milk scandal.
‘You didn’t really feel China was a safe place.
That is when the Chinese government pushed out the social credit system, to reboot society to be trustworthy, to build a trustworthy society and get back to the traditional Chinese culture.
‘In reality the system is not monolithic and top down by central government, in reality there are hundreds of local projects.
‘The cameras are only one part of the surveillance technology. There was a lot of investment used to set up all these surveillance cameras, but also a real name registration system, so every mobile SIM card is linked to your national ID.
‘In China nowadays they don’t really have any use for cash, they always use mobile payment wherever you go, you have a mobile on you, and if you got on the bus or take a train it can be monitored.
‘The people living in different communities have different needs, so what you call dystopian in China it’s considered a custom service, a local administration serves the local people.
‘Over here in Edinburgh if you want to wait for a pothole to be fixed, possibly 10 years, but over there you could call up the local authority and straight away a drone is sent to inspect it and then they get things done.
‘Last time I came back from China, sitting in the plane, and an old woman sat by me and we were talking about something and she said “oh well, we all know we are now naked”, so she knew there’s surveillance, people gradually learn and understand.’
Chongqing’s architecture
Another element of what makes Chongqing so dystopian is the way the city is set up.
Its mountainous geography has forced architects to utilise vertical space and create a multi-layered urban structure.
Buildings and infrastructure are integrated into this terrain, with roads and metro lines erected above ground or tunneled through slopes and even residential skyscrapers, also to maximise space.
Historic neighbourhoods built centuries ago have been preserved as pedestrian-friendly tourist destinations, standing proudly next to towering modern blocks.
Chongqiang was a significant military industrial hub during the Mao era and World War II, but the leftovers from this legacy have been reuses.
For example, former weapons plants have been converted into creative centres, cultural parks, and tech campuses.
This has resulted in a ‘5D city’ where different levels of infrastructure are interconnected even high up in the sky.
Most transport including rivers, railways and the main roads remain on ground of lower levels.
But those roads can consist of up to five levels stacked on top of each other: the Huangjuewan Interchange, for example, is a complicated five-layer intersection with 15 ramps.
The city is also known as the ‘bridge capital of China’ as it is home to more than 40 significant bridges, including Chaotianmen Bridge – one of the longest arch bridges in the world.
Mid levels feature residential neighbourhoods, public plazas and shops, while public facilities like schools are higher up.
This means high-rise buildings can have multiple public entrances on different floors, depending on which side you enter from.
The city also boasts 298 skyscrapers over 100 metres tall and 26 buildings exceeding 200 metres, ranking 15th worldwide for the number of skyscrapers and sixth in mainland China.
To put that into context, there are currently just 12 towers in London that exceed 200m.
The city is also home to The Crystal, a horizontal skyscraper which connects four skyscrapers high in the air.
For the growing number of tourists, the 5D city is a fascinating phenomenon, but for residents – particularly the working class who live on the lower levels of Chongqing – it means that sunlight has become luxury.
The megacity is also perpetually grey, enshrouded by a thick layer of fog for over 100 days of the year, forcing residents to live in the dark for at least a third of the year.
But planners have attempted to break this up and reduce the monotony by creating rooftop public parks on top of skyscrapers.
The city has been broken up into three distinct zones: the central city, satellite towns, and the rural belt.
Chongqing’s famous skyline and most of its economic activity takes place in the central core, but new development zones are being set up to move activity outside of the city centre.
Outer districts and counties feature mountainous agricultural terrain alongside ecological preservation zones.
A version of this article was originally published on May 1, 2025
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