Mindbending video shows tourist struggling to find ground floor of multilevel Chinese megacity

At a time when most cities resemble concrete jungles that simply replicate each other, some fascinating metros such as Chongqing in China stand out for their urban planning. One of the city's residents is Jackson Lu (@journeyofjackson), whose apartment is situated in an 18-story building that has no elevator. But when he heads out of his apartment to commute to work, he only needs to get down a few stories, as the ground floor is on the 12th floor. At the same time, folks who live below the 12th floor have to climb up for sunlight. In a TikTok video that amassed more than 34 million views in a day, he took viewers on a bizarre ride through this labyrinthine city.

Chongqing is sprawling with many geographical oddities, much like the surreal dreamscape portrayed in the sci-fi movie "Inception." With architecture that looks more like a puzzle, people can’t decide whether to feel flabbergasted or terrified about the unusual cityscape. In Chongqing, the rivers are above the ground floor and buses move at the same height as airplanes. On his daily commute to work, Jackson navigates twisty lanes, snaking corridors, freeways floating in the sky, and a morass of loopy streets that will make even the most stable-minded person feel disorientated. In the video, he shows trains casually steering through residential buildings and a rollercoaster subway with a gate that looks like the “entrance of a fallout shelter.” After all of that, just when he feels relieved to be on solid ground, his next step reveals something different. “Nope, I’m actually on the 22nd floor of my office building.” When he boards the bus assuming that it would be relaxing in comparison to the train, he finds out that it's moving along a path almost 20 stories up in the sky.

The video left people gobsmacked and some of them were almost horrified. “Does Google Maps work here? Do any maps work here? How do maps work here,” asked @amydanielleg, while @xoxaume commented, “It looks so dystopian but so cool at the same time that I haven't decided if I hate it or love it.” @thegreatshinobi_ added, “What a futuristic but not so futuristic looking city. I'd die from anxiety with those heights alone!”

Speaking to Architectural Digest, Jackson said, “People can’t wrap their heads around the directions, space, and ground floor.” Describing why the metropolis has such a surreal architecture, he said, “The city served as the wartime capital during World War II, after, the population got denser, and we needed to urbanize,” and added, “We utilize vertical space just like Hong Kong.”

In another viral TikTok, Jackson says, “In Chongqing, we never really know what floor we’re on, and we love putting things in the strangest places.” Hosting more than 100 skyscrapers, Chongqing’s urban space is a brilliant example of how vertical space can be utilized and how buildings can be stacked together. But when it comes to perspective, the maze-like city surely leaves commuters bewildered. “This city was probably built by a bunch of drunk civil engineers at the after-party,” he adds in a comment.

You can follow Jackson Lu on TikTok to see more architectural quirks of Chongqing city!