The Protestant mission began in the Chinese province of Sichuan (formerly romanized as Szechwan, Szechuan, or Ssuchʻuan; also referred to as "West China" or "Western China") in 1877, when premises were rented by the China Inland Mission in Chungking. However, it grew rather slowly, it was not until the late 1980s that Protestantism experienced rapid growth. The two largest denominations in the province before 1949 were Anglicanism and Methodism.