International Horticultural Exhibition 2024 Chengdu Opens

CHENGDU, China, Apr. 26, 2024/Xinhua-AsiaNet/–

On April 26th, the International Horticultural Exhibition 2024 Chengdu (Expo 2024 Chengdu or EXPO) officially opened with the central theme of “Park City, Beautiful Habitat”, and will continue until October 28th.

According to the organizing committee, this year’s EXPO will spread out over a total area of 3,633 mu (approximately 2.42 sq km), and the number of exhibiting gardens, number of gardens from abroad, number of gardens from associations and corporations, among other aspects, have all set new B category event records. The EXPO also compiled and unveiled the Low-carbon Management Proposal, the first of its kind in the history of the event in more than six decades.

To better showcase the characteristics of the host city, the main venue in the Chengdu Eastern New Area played to its natural strength by preserving over 100 endemic tree species in a thorough demonstration of the harmonious co-existence between humans and nature. Meanwhile, international gardens like those from Montpellier, Manchester and the Berlin “Berlin Iceberg Rose Garden” reflect the diversity and exchanges in global horticulture.

During the span of the EXPO, more than 2,000 activities like international flower gardening competition and intangible cultural heritage exhibition will also take place in Chengdu, so as to promote international interactions and collaborations between gardening, horticulture, floriculture and nursery industry, humanities and fine arts.

As to why this year’s International Horticultural Exhibition is hosted in Chengdu, perhaps people can find the answer in a book by the British horticulturalist and botanist Ernest Henry Wilson. In his work China, Mother of Gardens published in the 1930s, Wilson referred to Chengdu as the “Garden of Western China”.

Wilson realized that “this beautiful and fertile region” knows neither drought nor hunger, and basically all vegetables and edible oil materials are found in Chengdu, with their quality generally superior to counterparts from elsewhere. Thanks to scientific research today, people have long discovered the “secret” behind Chengdu’s beauty and fertility: Over 5,000m in elevation difference is the foundation of Chengdu’s unrivaled advantage in biodiversity.

Wilson made his way around most of China, and he concluded that “Chengdu has a population of 350,000, and in some aspects it can be regarded as the most beautiful city in China.” Following development of the times, Chengdu’s permanent population has surpassed the 20 million mark, and the Sichuan provincial capital is striding forward on the path of megacity sustainable development, namely the building of a park city.

Due to progress in the park city construction endeavor, Chengdu’s horticulture industry has enjoyed a tremendous boost. At present, Chengdu is home to over 1,500 species of plants, overall plantation area amounting to roughly 900,000 mu (approximately 600 sq km), 26 professional floriculture and nursery markets, and more than 2,000 floral shops, which is why it is Western China’s largest flower and sapling distribution hub, with annual output of plants totaling around RMB 13 billion.