Such hastily built dwellings were hardly a surprise in a desperately poor city suddenly thrust into national and international prominence. Chongqing’s population had soared as refugees poured into Free China: a city of nearly 474,000 people in 1937 had expanded to over 700,000 by 1941 and would rise to some 1.05 million by the end of the war.7 Sichuan province served as a major base for the government’s plans for resistance and reconstruction, and its population (at its highest point in 1944) was some 47.5 million people.
