Chengdu or Chongqing?

Neither city has a beach, and both are a very long way from the sea, so this pair is the wrong choice for sand and swimming. In Chengdu's humid summer you cool off in a hotel pool or a leisure water park. In Chongqing the Yangtze and Jialing are too fast and muddy to swim in, so it is hotel pools or the hot-spring resorts on the city's edges.

Both are among the great places to eat in China, and both cook with Sichuan pepper, chilli and beef-tallow hotpot. The difference is range. Chengdu is the home of the wider Sichuan repertoire: mapo tofu and twice-cooked pork, cold plates in red oil, milder sweet-and-sour and smoky dishes, and jasmine tea in the park teahouses.

Chongqing narrows the focus and turns up the heat. It has hotpot in halls of hundreds of tables, xiaomian noodles for breakfast, and spicy chicken buried in dried chillies, with cold beer to put out the fire. If you cannot take much spice, you will find more choice in Chengdu.

Chengdu has more to see, though neither city has a true historic core. Its sights have more depth: the Wuhou Shrine to Zhuge Liang, the Du Fu Thatched Cottage, the Wenshu Monastery and Qingyang Palace, and the Jinsha Site Museum with the gold of an ancient Shu kingdom.

In Chongqing the draw is the cityscape itself, with towers on ridges and the lit-up peninsula, and Hongyadong as the postcard view. Its museums focus on the Yangtze and on its years as China's wartime capital, including the Stilwell Museum, and two or three days covers them.

Both are late cities where dinner is half the night, but Chengdu has a little more range once the meal is over. The bars along the Jin River around Jiuyanqiao fill at weekends, and the consulate and Yulin districts add quieter craft-beer and cocktail bars.

Chongqing's nights start with the view from the riverbanks or the cable car. They then run through hotpot to the Jiujie clubs in Jiangbei, which are built around table service and DJs. Almost none of it is aimed at foreign visitors. Some will enjoy that, while others will find it harder to find their way.

The two are close here, but the outdoors works differently. Chengdu sits on the flat floor of the basin, so its landscapes begin an hour or more away: the Taoist trails of Qingcheng, the cloud forest and monkeys of Emeishan, and the bamboo of the Wolong panda reserves.

Chongqing has hills inside the city. Nanshan rises straight across the Yangtze from the centre, and the Jinyun and Gele mountains make easy half-day escapes. Further out, Wulong's natural bridges and sinkholes and the Three Gorges by boat offer more dramatic river and karst scenery.

Chengdu is the stronger base. Within about an hour you can reach the Leshan Giant Buddha, the ancient Dujiangyan irrigation system, the bronze masks of Sanxingdui, and old market towns such as Huanglongxi and Pingle.

Chongqing has a few fine outings, above all the Dazu Rock Carvings about two hours away and the Diaoyu Fortress, plus stilt-house towns like Zhongshan and Songji. Its most obvious day trip, though, is the fast train to Chengdu, and beyond that its longer outings are about landscape rather than towns.

Chengdu is the easier city with children. The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, best visited early in the morning, beats any single sight in Chongqing for most families. The flat streets, the zoo, the aquarium park and the big weekend parks make the days simple to fill.

Chongqing has pandas at its zoo, a science museum on the Jiangbei riverfront, and cable car and monorail rides that children love. Its stairs and steep lanes defeat a pushchair, though, and its summer heat is even harder going. In both cities, ask for milder dishes for the children.

Both have large metro networks with English signs, and taxis and ride-hailing are cheap in both. The real difference is the terrain. Chengdu is flat, so shared bikes are easy and walking around Tianfu Square and Chunxi Road is pleasant, even if the sights are far apart.

Chongqing is built on ridges. A short hop on the map can mean dozens of flights of stairs or a lift down twenty floors, and map apps often cannot tell which level you are on. The cable cars, escalators and the elevated Line 2 make this part of the fun, but you will move more slowly.

Chengdu has the edge, mainly for things you would not find elsewhere. Besides the big malls on Chunxi Road and the traditional-style quarter by the Daci Temple, it sells Shu brocade, Sichuan embroidery and mountain green teas from the tea markets on its edge.

Chongqing's malls around Jiefangbei and in Guanyinqiao are large and well stocked, but much like those in any big Chinese city. Most of its local buys are edible: hotpot base, Sichuan pepper and spicy snacks, with souvenirs in Ciqikou.

Your money goes a long way in both cities, with cheap noodles, skewers and metro rides, and hotels well below what China's coastal cities charge. What adds to the bill differs. In Chengdu it is the train fares and tickets for Leshan or Sanxingdui, plus the popular hotpot places. In Chongqing it is the Yangtze cruises, cable cars and paid viewpoints that come with seeing the city from above.

Chengdu offers more. Both stage the face-changing and fire-spitting shows of Sichuan opera, but Chengdu adds a lively small-venue music scene, with livehouses for indie, folk and Sichuan-dialect hip-hop.

Chongqing's strength is the formal side. The glass Chongqing Grand Theatre on the Jiangbei waterfront hosts ballet and touring productions, and the city has its own symphony orchestra. Beyond that, the live scene is small and almost entirely in Chinese.

Rest comes in a different form in each, and neither city is calm as a whole. In Chengdu it means the teahouse: whole afternoons in bamboo chairs in People's Park, with mahjong, ear cleaners, and cheap foot massage on most streets.

Chongqing has a true bathing tradition. Its thermal springs at Beiwenquan, Nanwenquan and Dongquan have been used for centuries and have outdoor pools in wooded valleys, at their best in the damp winters. You have to travel to the edge of the city to reach them, while Chengdu's calm is right in the middle of town.