Known as the “City of Animation,” Chengdu has emerged as a leading employment destination for animation graduates, thanks to its concentrated industry base, well-developed supporting ecosystem, and relatively low living costs. Motivated by my intention to pursue employment in Chengdu’s animation industry, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of industry scale, park-based clustering, original content capability, and policy support in relation to employment and career development, and compares Chengdu with first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to evaluate the relative career returns and development prospects.
Chengdu has become one of the core cities of China’s animation industry. It hosts more than 37,000 animation-related enterprises, and the added value of its cultural and creative industries has exceeded 280 billion yuan. The city has over 100,000 industry practitioners and as many as 220,000 film and television majors in the talent pipeline (Huang & Dong, 2025)
A defining feature of Chengdu’s animation sector is its high degree of geographic concentration. Core enterprises—such as Kekedou Animation, creator of Ne Zha, as well as L2 Studio and Mojing Tianhe—are clustered in Chengdu’s High-tech Zone, especially in the Tianfu Changdao Digital Cultural and Creative Park and its surrounding areas (Liu & Li, 2023). This layout supports an efficient “10-minute industrial collaboration circle”, enabling communication, file transfer, and upstream–downstream collaboration almost as conveniently as if teams were in the same building (Chengdu Cultural and Creative Industry Development Report, 2023). For students, this significantly reduces the costs of internships, interviews, and professional networking, and provides more direct access to core projects.
Chengdu’s creative environment is propelling animators from execution to original creation, fostering deeper participation. Local studios have moved beyond outsourcing to incubate original IPs. The “Ne Zha” franchise surpassing 15 billion yuan at the box office demonstrates that local teams possess end-to-end capabilities for top-tier projects (Zhang, 2021). In this context, animation majors who start their careers in Chengdu are more likely to contribute to original, market-facing content early on, rather than spending years on repetitive processing. Government policies—including industrial funds and project subsidies—offer tangible support for these original endeavors (Chen, 2022).
In terms of work–life and income balance, Chengdu combines competitive salaries for in-demand roles in the digital cultural and creative industries with a relatively low cost of living (2023 Chengdu Digital Culture and Creativity Industry Talent Report, 2023). Compared with first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, housing prices and rents are significantly lower. The city’s overall pace and character are more inclusive and tolerant of trial and error. Such an environment may suit creative work that requires patience and refinement better than a strictly fast-paced one, enabling teams to focus on long-term, high-quality output with peace of mind.
References
Chen, H. (2022) ‘Policy support and innovation in Chengdu’s cultural and creative industries’, Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(3), pp. 45-59.
Chengdu Cultural and Creative Industry Development Report. (2023). Chengdu: Chengdu Bureau of Culture and Tourism.
Huang, B. and Dong, X. (2025) ‘Exploring the Rise of Chengdu’s Animation Industry’, Xinhuanet Cultural Observation.
Liu, Y. and Li, T. (2023) ‘Cluster development of the animation industry in Chengdu High-tech Zone’, Modern Urban Research, 38(1), pp. 112-120.
Zhang, R. (2021) ‘From processing to original: a case study of Chengdu’s animation studios’, Film Art, (5), pp. 88-95.
2023 Chengdu Digital Culture and Creativity Industry Talent Report. (2023). Chengdu: Chengdu Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.
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