It may only be the seventh-largest city in China (with an estimated 11 million people), but it’s perhaps no surprise that Chengdu, about a three-hour flight west from both Beijing and Shanghai, has emerged as an urban-getaway destination for the country’s food and shopping obsessed. The 2,300-year-old city — which is the capital of Sichuan Province in the nation’s southwest, an area long renowned for its bright, spicy cuisine — was once a hub for silk brocade and satin, and is also celebrated for being home to the country’s first distillery, as well as the onetime residence of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu (China’s equivalent of Horace).

These days, Chengdu is also known for its concentration of tech companies: Lenovo, Foxconn and Intel all have large factories here. The recent influx of foreign money and visitors, combined with the centuries-old local obsession with good food and good tea, have made the city one of China’s most aesthetically and gastronomically innovative hubs, while also remaining distinctively, traditionally Chinese. ‘‘Beijing is too political. Shanghai is 100 percent modernized. Xian is old-fashioned,’’ says Claudia Du, a 25-year-old local. ‘‘Chengdu is the city that combines culture and modernization the best.’’

It’s also — refreshingly, in nonstop China — a place whose residents prize quality of life as much as they do making money. Here, a subtropical climate justifies the occasional siesta, the local sport is retreating to teahouses and an oft-quoted saying instructs old people not to leave and the young not to come, as they risk losing all desire to work. (It seems appropriate that there are multiple sanctuaries in the area for giant pandas, creatures who spend the majority of their time either eating or sleeping.) Here’s what to see and eat now.