为什么没人听说过中国的特大城市

Why Nobody Has Ever Heard Of China's Mega Cities

为什么没人听说过中国的特大城市？

Think of the world’s great cities. New York, London, Tokyo, Paris. Their names evoke powerful images and a clear sense of identity. Now, think of China. You probably picture Beiing’s Forbidden City or Shanghai’s futuristic skyline. But what about Chongqing (chongchin), Chengdu, or Tianin? These are not small regional towns or even mid-sized cities; they are sprawling metropolises, each with a population that dwarfs that of Rome, Berlin, or Chicago. In fact, China has over a dozen cities with more than 10 million people, yet most of them remain completely anonymous to the outside world. So why don’t we know more about them?

想想世界上那些知名的大城市，比如纽约、伦敦、东京、巴黎。它们的名字总能唤起鲜明的画面，以及清晰的城市辨识度。

现在，再想想中国。你可能会想到北京的故宫，或是上海充满未来感的天际线。但重庆、成都或天津呢？这些城市既不是小型区域城镇，也绝非中等规模城市。它们是大都市，每一座城市的人口数量，都让罗马、柏林或芝加哥相形见绌。

事实上，中国拥有十多个人口超千万的城市，但这些城市中的大多数，在国际上依然完全 “无名”。那么，为什么我们对它们的了解如此之少？

以下是各国网友的评论：

eddielong8663
That remaining 6% of China's population in the mostly uninhabitable western half is still 84,000,000. Three times bigger than Australia's (my country). To me, it's bizarre when that and certain other regions of the world, such as Middle America and some parts of Eastern Europe are described as "sparsely populated".

中国西部大半地区大多不适宜居住，但即便如此，这里仍住着全国6%的人口，足足有8400万。这个数字是澳大利亚（我的祖国）人口的三倍。在我看来，把中国西部、中美洲还有东欧部分地区说成是“人口稀少”，实在让人想不通。

Shoelessjoe78
That's Asia in general. However there's a major course correction already underway. It's going to be an interesting test bed for the future with collapsing populations across the region.

整个亚洲基本都这样。不过，现在已经在进行重大的趋势调整了。这个地区人口一直在减少，未来这里或许会成为一个有意思的“试验场”。

eddielong8663
True, that. South Korea is currently at 0.72 babies per woman. Yikes

确实是这样。韩国现在每个女性平均只生0.72个孩子。这也太少了吧！

niaengd6089
@eddielong8663 Africa is now taking the leads on human production.

现在非洲的人口增长速度是最快的。

biocapsule7311
As I recall, they are also actively trying to make the uninhabitable parts, habitable and increase living standards.

我记得，他们还在积极想办法，把那些不适宜居住的地方改造成能住人的地方，同时提高当地的生活水平。

Worldaffairslover
It’s because it is sparsely populated

这些地方确实人口少啊。

zhengyunli800
Those area are not uninhabitable but less inhabitable. People always choose the better place if they have choices.

这些地方不是完全不能住，只是住起来没那么舒服。要是有得选，人们肯定会挑条件更好的地方住。

cassiopesysg5423
I mean Australia is also sparsely populated, just 30km outside Sydney, there's large unmanned areas

我是说，澳大利亚其实也是人口稀少的国家。离悉尼才30公里的地方，就有大片没人住的区域。

TheSugarholicProject
Not to be that guy, but this is not entirely correct. Cities in China are more like prefectures, and when you talk about the "population" of a city, it often contains a huge chunk of unurbanized land. It's just how administration works in China.

我不是想抬杠，但这话不全对。中国的“市”更像是行政区，你说一个“市”的人口时，其实这个范围里包含了很多还没城市化的地方。中国的行政划分就是这样的。

rubadub79
Not to be that other guy, but most people in those people in those prefectures, still live in the city. That's where they work for most of the year. There is a hukou system, it's complicated, but those "population" numbers are correct.

我也不是想抬杠，但那些行政区里的大多数人，还是住在城市里的。一年里大部分时间，他们都在城市上班。中国有户籍制度，这事儿是挺复杂的，但那些“人口”数据是准确的。

Dancenobodies
To be that guy, I live in the inner district of Beiing, icheng. And it has a population larger than 2,000,000 alone and the district is dense.

那我也说句实在的，我住在北京的中心城区西城区。就这一个区，人口就超过200万了，人口密度特别大。

Default78334
@draetone5602 And then you have Chongqing which has has municipal boundaries encompassing 31,816 sq mi or 82,403 sq km (about the same area as the whole nation of Austria).

再说说重庆，它的市域范围有31816平方英里，也就是82403平方公里，差不多和整个奥地利国家的面积一样大。

daseinX9
yes, more similar to Greater Manchester in the UK

对，和英国的大曼彻斯特地区更像。

kered13
Yes, if you're comparing to US cities it would be most fair to compared them to the MSA or CSA, which are larger urban agglomerates. For example, New York City has 8.4 million people in it's city limits, but 20 million in it's MSA (which includes northern New Jersey and Long Island), and 22.3 million in it's CSA (which extends as far as Princeton, NJ and Poughkeepsie, NY).

没错，要是和美国的城市比，最公平的方式是对比它们的“大都市区（MSA）”或者“联合统计区（CSA）”，这些都是更大的城市聚集区域。比如，纽约市市区范围内的人口是840万，但它的大都市区（包括新泽西州北部和长岛）有2000万人，联合统计区（一直延伸到新泽西州的普林斯顿和纽约州的波基普西）更是有2230万人。

hpsauce1078
A lot of these cities you mentioned are already pretty famous and are actually quite old, there are reams of slightly smaller Chinese cities that would be worth mentioning though, places like Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, inan, guizhou, Kunming, Qingdao etc etc etc

你提到的这些城市里，好多已经挺有名了，而且其实历史也很久。不过，中国还有很多规模稍小但值得一提的城市，比如沈阳、郑州、石家庄、济南、贵阳、昆明、青岛这些。

arbs3ry
Bro, most Chinese big cities are not new, many of them have a history of at least over a 1000 year. Chengdu had always been a big city in ancient China, being a city it's more than 2000 years old. Both Guangzhou and Chongqing too are 2000 years old. They are just not known to the outside world.

兄弟，中国大部分大城市都不是新建的，好多都有至少上千年的历史了。成都在古代中国一直是大城市，建城都有2000多年了。广州和重庆也有2000年历史。就是在国外没人知道它们而已。

petermadany2779
One reason Geoff may think they're unknown is that the official Romanization changed a century ago, so we no longer use spellings like Canton (the province containing Guangzhou) and Chunking, which were previously known.

杰夫觉得这些城市没名气，一个原因可能是一百年前官方改了罗马字母拼写方式。以前常用的“Canton”（指包含广州的省份，也就是广东省）和“Chunking”（重庆的旧拼写），现在都不用了。

timecolonist5704
ChenDu is definitely known for something else. Their pandas and “bears”

成都肯定还有别的出名的点啊。比如那里的熊猫

Dalianon
The only straight things in Chengdu are chopsticks and Tianfu Avenue

成都唯一“直”的东西，就只有筷子和天府大道。

cmaven4762
One often hears characters in Chinese short form dramas referring [usually disparagingly] to "migrant workers".... the Hu Kou system is what creates these "migrant" populations, because many people who move to urban areas like Shanghai or Shenzhen don't transfer their residencies ... they live and work as "temporary" residents, frequently doing without benefits like access to school and certain health care resources. I've been seeing some information suggesting that at least some people who flocked to the big cities in their 20s and 30s are moving back to urban areas closer to their homes when they get older and are trying to raise children.

在中国的短剧中，经常能听到角色（通常是带着看不起的语气）说“农民工”……这些“外来”人口其实是户籍制度造成的。因为很多人搬到上海、深圳这样的城市后，没把户口迁过来。他们只能以“临时”居民的身份在这儿生活、上班，经常享受不到上学、某些医疗资源这些福利。我看到有消息说，至少有一部分人，二十几岁、三十几岁的时候涌进大城市，等年纪大了要养孩子了，就会搬回离老家近的城市。

rinceofchetarria5375
I was lucky enough to travel around China as a child back in 2012. I visited a lot of different cities including Beiing, ian, Luoyang, Chengdu, Congqing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. It was absolutely amazing. I was probably sheltered from the negative aspects of the country but I just thought it was the most amazing country ever. And the people were incredibly friendly as well.

2012年我还是个小孩的时候，特别幸运能去中国旅行。我去了好多不同的城市，有北京、西安、洛阳、成都、重庆、深圳还有广州。那次旅行真的太棒了。可能我没接触到这个国家不好的方面，但当时我觉得它就是世界上最棒的国家。而且那里的人也特别友好。

aidanbarrett9313
I must say this is a splendidly detailed description of why such major cities are relatively unknown.

我得说，关于这些大城市为什么名气不大，这段描述写得特别详细、特别好。

team3am149
Just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it's unknown. Most Americans have probably also never heard of the third largest city in Western Europe or Japan.

你不知道某件事，不代表没人知道。大多数美国人可能连西欧或者日本的第三大城市都没听过。

ipteshrai5979
London, Seoul, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin Barcelona, Madrid, Osaka

伦敦、首尔、东京、巴黎、柏林、巴塞罗那、马德里、大阪。

TheZestyCar
I would have mentioned the top 5 or 10 largest cities in Russia.

我本来应该提一提俄罗斯排名前五或者前十的大城市的。

eddielong8663
Sometimes it's a little difficult to tell. I would've gone with either Madrid or Berlin. But then there's also the polycentric Ruhr Region in Germany, which when all added up is upwards of 10 million. With the Greater Milan metro area coming in 4th place.

有时候确实不太好判断。我会选马德里或者柏林。不过德国还有个多中心的鲁尔区，把那儿的人口加起来有1000多万。而大米兰都市区能排到第四位。

team3am149
@eddielong8663 That was the trick answer. I mean which American has heard of Nagoya or Frankfurt am Main of the Rhine-Main metropolitan region. Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen, etc., are all much more well known across the world at this point than those cities.

这其实是个陷阱题。我是说，有哪个美国人听过名古屋，或者莱茵-美因大都市区的美因河畔法兰克福啊？现在来看，重庆、成都、深圳这些中国城市，在全世界的名气都比那些城市大得多。

maxhocks2006
That’s not it. All of these cities have culture, hundreds of years of history, and stories (movies, books, songs) about them. Most people in the world know more about Glasgow, Portland, or Osaka than they do about any of these Chinese cities. Until they have organic culture, stories that the rest of the world knows, or at least 50 years of history as a city they’re probably gonna be less well known.

不是这么回事。那些（有名的）城市都有自己的文化、几百年的历史，还有关于它们的故事（比如电影、书、歌里都会提到）。世界上大多数人对格拉斯哥、波特兰或者大阪的了解，都比对这些中国城市多。除非这些中国城市能有让全世界都知道的本土文化和故事，或者至少有50年的城市发展历史，否则它们可能还是没什么名气。

AustinKelly94
Chengdu has the best vibes of any city I've visited, would recommend every visits

在我去过的所有城市里，成都的氛围是最好的，推荐每个人都去看看。

Phoenix-bq7lw
Secret? Just because you do not know, does not make it secret. It is ignorance. But it is increasingly common in the West. They learn only whatever they want to learn. In Japan, they do not tell much about history. As the result the Japanese think they are the second civilization after America. Many think they invaded South East Asia with Hello Kitty.

秘密？你不知道，不代表这是秘密。这是你自己不懂而已。但这种情况在西方越来越常见了，他们只愿意学自己想知道的东西。在日本，他们不怎么讲历史。结果就是日本人觉得自己是仅次于美国的第二大文明，好多人甚至以为他们当年是带着Hello Kitty入侵东南亚的。

omd
Chongqing and Chengdu are developed and modern inland cities like other megacities in the world such as Seoul or Tokyo despite being located deep inside the continent with high mountains while Shenzhen is a city of miracles having transformed from a warm tropical region without a long history like its cities in the Pearl river delta into a rapidly develo and modern city in just 40 years than cities with long histories in cold temperate climates like Boston of USA or Lyon of France and Shenzhen has a latitude and humid tropical climate similar to Northern Vietnam so it is quite warm, so many people from Northeast China come here to settle and work. Also there is a saying that if you want to know the development of the past 40 years go to Shenzhen, a typical example of rapid development and surpass.

重庆和成都虽然地处内陆深处，周围都是高山，但它们和首尔、东京这些世界上的大城市一样，都是发达的现代化城市。而深圳是个“奇迹之城”——它不像珠江三角洲的其他城市那样有悠久历史，原本只是个气候温暖的热带地区，却在短短40年里崛起为现代化城市，比美国波士顿、法国里昂这些位于温带、有悠久历史的城市发展得还快。而且深圳的纬度和湿润的热带气候和越南北部差不多，所以天气挺暖和，很多东北人都来这儿定居、上班。还有句话说，想了解中国过去40年的发展，就去深圳——它是快速发展、实现赶超的典型例子。

thecoolrich
i wonder if this is the same case for India. i’ve only ever heard of Mumbai.. i don’t know any other large cities there

我在想印度是不是也这样。我只听过孟买，其他的大城市我都不知道。

503.P.d.x
Hey I know of Chongqing, as it’s been getting some buzz because of people showing off it’s multiple levels

嘿，我知道重庆！最近总有人晒它“多层立体”的城市景观，还挺火的。

Will-xf3qe
Yeah I think their tourism department gives out a lot of free trips to influencers. Kind of funny because they always take them to the same places so everyone's videos all show the same stuff from that coty

对，我觉得他们的旅游部门给了网红们好多免费旅游的机会。不过有点好笑的是，他们总带网红去同一个地方，所以大家拍的视频里，都是这个城市的同一个景点。

BnaBreaker
These cities aren't in any way a "secret," and many, many people are aware of their exstence outside of China, Geoff. I realize that sensationalist titles probably get more clicks, but you don't have to be SO extreme with your verbiage.

杰夫，这些城市根本不是什么“秘密”，在中国之外，好多好多人都知道它们存在。

raybod1775
I’m an American and have heard of every one of these Chinese cities.

我是美国人，这些中国城市每一个，我都听过啊。

cohcoh668
Why? Because western medias have been demonizing everything in China for decades, including their amazing cities.

为什么会这样？几十年来，西方媒体一直在抹黑中国的一切，包括那些超棒的城市。