Traveling through billions of years, touching the natural epic of Chongqing — A tour of the Chongqing Natural History Museum

As soon as you step into the Chongqing Natural History Museum, the scale of time is redefined. There are no bustling city lights here, only silent fossils telling ancient secrets, and lively specimens outlining the threads of life, condensing the natural legends of Chongqing and even the Earth into a tangible, perceptible three-dimensional scroll. In the Dinosaur Hall, massive skeletons support the ancient sky, and the sharp claw marks of the Yongchuan Dragon seem still embedded in the rock layers, instantly transporting you back to the Jurassic Chongqing Basin, imagining the magnificent scene of lush vegetation and roaming giant beasts. Turning the corner in the exhibition hall, the ecological microcosm of the upper Yangtze River unfolds before your eyes, from the coniferous forests of the Daba Mountains to the broadleaf forests of the Wuling Mountains, from the rare fish of the Jialing River to the endemic birds of Jinfo Mountain. Each specimen is a vivid footnote to Chongqing’s ecological diversity, telling the story of the symbiotic prosperity between this land and life. The Earth Hall is like an open geological encyclopedia, from ancient ocean blue-green algae to the rock layers beneath today’s city, from the mighty forces of plate tectonics to the exquisite craftsmanship of karst landforms, clearly outlining Chongqing’s geological transformation from an “ancient ocean” to a “mountain city.” Here, you can understand why Chongqing has so many strange peaks and rocks, why the Yangtze River carves magnificent gorges here—each rock is a love letter Earth wrote to Chongqing. As you leave the exhibition hall, the sunset shines through the glass curtain wall, falling on the “Nature · Life · People” themed sculpture at the entrance. Only at this moment do you realize that the Chongqing Natural History Museum is not just a hall for collecting specimens but a bridge connecting the past and the future—it lets us see Chongqing’s natural roots and reminds everyone to protect the miraculous life on this land that has lasted billions of years.