As of the 2020 census, its population was 3,160,168, of whom 1,236,188 lived in the built-up metro area made of Shizhong (downtown), Wutongqiao, Shawan and Jinkouhe districts.

[4] It is also a regional center in the southern part of the Chengdu Economic Zone, serving as a transportation hub and port city in southwestern China.

Leshan has a long history, with written records tracing back to around 700 BC during the Kai Ming dynasty of the Shu Kingdom.

In the Northern Song's Chongning reign, Leshan belonged to Jiading Prefecture, which administered five counties.

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Leshan's status rose from a prefecture to a province (lu), becoming the third-largest city in Sichuan, after Chengdu and Chongqing.

In the twelfth year of Emperor Yongzheng's reign (1734 AD) of the Qing dynasty, Jiading Prefecture was established again.

[5] In the early years of the Republic of China, from 1912 to 1917, Leshan was restructured into a county under the jurisdiction of the Sichuan Provincial Governor's Office.

After Yuan Shikai's death, Sichuan broke away from central authority; by 1918, Xiong Kewu took control of Sichuan, implementing the "Defense Zone System," which decentralized military, political, financial, and tax powers to local garrisons, leading to warlordism and prolonged unrest in the region for 18 years.

[5] After the Mukden Incident, the Nationalist government relocated the treasures from the Forbidden City, Beijing to Shanghai, then Nanjing, and a significant portion eventually ended up in Leshan, including Emei and Angu, while the rest of them stored in Baxian (now Banan, Chongqing).

The ancestral home of Chinese writer, academic and politician Guo Moruo is preserved in the Shawan District of Leshan.

Summers are long, hot and humid, with highs often exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), yet extended heat waves are rare.

The climate in the southwest mountainous area has obvious vertical differences and the climatic conditions are very complex, which is a region for the development of comprehensive agricultural management and three-dimensional agriculture in the region, the main production area of wood, tea, Chinese medicinal materials and other crops, and also a valuable tourism resource.