For the initial boundary value problem of compressible barotropic Navier-Stokes equations in one-dimensional bounded domains with general density-dependent viscosity and large external force, we prove that there exists a unique global classical solution with large initial data containing vacuum. Furthermore, we show that the density is bounded from above independently of time, which yields the large time behavior of the solutions as time tends to infinity. More precisely, the density and the velocity converge to the steady states in L p and in W 1,p (1 ≤ p < +∞), respectively. Moreover, the decay rate in time of the solutions is shown to be exponential. Finally, we also prove that the spatial gradient of density will blow up as time tends to infinity when the vacuum states appear initially even at one point. KEYWORDS compressible Navier-Stokes equations, density-dependent viscosity, global classical solutions, large-time behavior, vacuum MSC CLASSIFICATION 35Q35; 35A09; 35B45; 35B65