The majority of Chengde's one-million-strong population live in a semi-rural suburban sprawl to the south of the centre, leaving the city itself fairly small-scale, its new high-rises yet to obscure the view of distant mountains and fields. However, the surrounding area's buildings, parks and lakes attract hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and, on summer weekends especially, the town is packed with tourists and its main arterial road, Nanyingzi Dajie , is clogged with traffic. The road is much more pleasant in the evening, when a night market stretches all the way down it. Many of the vendors sell antiques and curios which are generally cheaper than in either Beijing or Tianjin, but you'll have to bargain hard and don't expect everything to be genuine.

The mountain resort , a landscaped imperial park with a fabulous palace complex, lies in the north of the town, while farther north and to the east, on the other side of the river, stand Chengde's eight imposing temples .