Raffles City & Crystal Exploration Deck

Raffles City Chongqing is dominated by The Crystal, a 250-meter-high horizontal skybridge designed by architect Moshe Safdie that links the tops of several towers at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. It’s one of the tallest horizontal structures of its kind anywhere, and the standout feature is the Exploration Deck: a glass-floored viewing platform where visitors can look straight down at the city and the meeting point of the two rivers.

The deck combines an exhibition space with the observation area itself, including a suspended walkway along the top of the bridge and a fully transparent glass section for anyone brave enough to look down. On a clear day the 270-degree views take in Yuzhong, Jiangbei, and Nan’an districts simultaneously — a genuinely useful way to get oriented in a city that’s notoriously confusing at street level.

Below the skybridge, Raffles City itself is a large mixed-use complex with extensive shopping and dining, making it easy to combine a visit to the deck with a few hours elsewhere in the building.