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Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikivoyage or other free sources online. The Southern Central Region of China is largely an agricultural area, but it has some quite large cities and considerable industry as well. This area is generally poorer than the coastal provinces on the eastern and southern coasts and is the main source of migrant laborers for those provinces. The regions of Sichuan and Chongqing are sometimes referred to as Western China by Chinese, because they are the edge of China proper (the area historically inhabited by Han Chinese) even though they are near the center of the modern Chinese state. Western Sichuan was once part of a Tibetan Empire; it lies at edge of the region and is the gateway to the frontier/minority regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Chongqing is historically and culturally part of Sichuan, but is now administratively a separate municipality and a mega-city in its own right. With a population of almost 30 million counting suburbs, it is China´s largest city. This book offers information on South-central China and its most notable places.

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