The favorable geographical position of the Sichuan basin (primarily the Chengdu area) was well-recognized historically, with some historical texts referring to it as "天府之国". During the 3 Kingdoms period, Mr Zhuge's 《隆中對》 describes the place as “益州险塞，沃野千里，天府之土，高祖因之，以成帝业”.

Further trivia, this area played a big part in the development of the Chinese civilization as it is from this place, the founder of the Han dynasty started and completed his conquest of China to form the Han dynasty - the fact that us Chinese regard ourselves as "Han Chinese" originates from association with the Han dynasty.

Despite these, the development of the Sichuan province was often on a separate track from the rest of China due primarily to the geographically difficulties in entering and exiting the Sichuan from / to Chinese central plains. Poet Li Bai describes this in his aptly-titled poem 《蜀道難》... "危乎高哉！蜀道之難，難於上青天！Apparently, back to the end of Qin dynasty, there was only one-regarded route into the province, hence the success of 明修暗道，暗度陈仓。A few hundred years later during the 3 kingdoms period, the practical difficulties of exiting Sichuan were still readily apparent hence, the famous 诸葛亮七出岐山.

This results in the development of unique cultures within the province and which for the practical difficulties, vary across the province as well. The geographical makeup of the province is pretty diverse, from the ranging from the pleasant Sichuan basin to inhospitable (from real experience)highland plateaus and mountains en route to Tibet.

Daocheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daocheng_County) was the first place we visited. We stayed for 24 hours before evacuating due to the altitude. Damn shag.
The airport is 4,411m above sea level and the Daocheng town is 3,750m above sea level. To put things in perspective, Everest base camp is 5,364m above sea level and air planes are required to be pressurized at 3,800m above sea level. The mistake we made was that we flew in directly without acclimatization, very bad idea.... From what little we saw, it's a really beautiful place with the highlight being the Yading nature reserve - these places are still lightly touched by modern tourism and retains much of their natural splendor. For those who are interested, the recommended route is the overland route from the town of Kangding, to allow your body to slowly acclimatize to the altitude...