Hubei
From ChinaTravelGuide
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[edit] Overview
Hubei, which lies in the middle Yangtze River valley, derived its name from its location north of the Dongting Lake. It is also known as the "thoroughfare of nine provinces": with the Yangtze River flowing from west to east and the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway running from north to south, Hubei is located right in the middle of the country's main water and land transport artery. It has an area of 185,900 sq km and a population of 56,540,000. The provincial capital is Wuhan.
[edit] History
By the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC), Hubei was home to the powerful state of Chu. Chu was nominally a tributary state of the Zhou Dynasty, and it was itself an extension of the Chinese civilization that had emerged some centuries before in the north; but it was also culturally unique, and was a powerful state that held onto much of the middle and lower Yangtze River, with power extending northwards into the North China Plain.
During the Warring States Period (475 BC - 221 BC) Chu became the major adversary of the upstart state of Qin to the northwest (in what is now Shaanxi province), which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land: first its dominance over the Sichuan Basin, then (in 278 BC) its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, which had fled eastwards, as part of Qin's bid for the conquest of all China.
Qin founded the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC, the first unified state in China. Qin was succeeded by the Han Dynasty in 206 BC, which established the province (zhou) of Jingzhou in what is now Hubei and Hunan. Near the end of the Han Dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, Jingzhou was ruled by regional warlord Liu Biao. After his death, Liu Biao's realm was surrendered by his successors to Cao Cao, a powerful warlord who had conquered nearly all of north China; but in the Battle of Red Cliffs, warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan drove Cao Cao out of Jingzhou. Liu Bei then took control of Jingzhou; he went on to conquer Yizhou (the Sichuan Basin), but lost Jingzhou to Sun Quan; for the next few decades Jingzhou was controlled by the Wu Kingdom, ruled by Sun Quan and his successors.
The incursion of northern nomadic peoples into northern China at the beginning of the 4th century began nearly three centuries of the division of China into a nomad-ruled (but increasingly Sinicized) north and a Han Chinese-ruled south. Hubei, which is in southern China, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the reunification of China by the Sui Dynasty in 589. In 617 the Tang Dynasty replaced Sui, and later on the Tang Dynasty placed what is now Hubei under several circuits: Jiangnanxi Circuit in the south; Shannandong Circuit in the west, and Huainan Circuit in the east. After the Tang Dynasty disintegrated the 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several regional regimes: Jingnan in the center, Wu (later Southern Tang) to the east, and the Five Dynasties to the north.
The Song Dynasty reunified China in 982 and placed most of Hubei into Jinghubei Circuit, a longer version of Hubei's current name. Mongols conquered China fully in 1279, and under their rule the province of Huguang was established, covering Hubei, Hunan, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. During the Mongol rule, in 1334, Hubei was devastated by the world's first recorded outbreak of the Black Death, which spread during the following three centuries to decimate populations throughout Eurasia. (Citation needed, as most authorities say Central Asia, some say India, and at least one says Africa).
The Ming Dynasty drove out the Mongols in 1368, and their version of Huguang province was smaller, and corresponded almost entirely to the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan combined. The Manchu Qing Dynasty which had conquered China in 1644 split Huguang into the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan in 1664. The Qing Dynasty continued to maintain a viceroy of Huguang, however; one of the most famous was Zhang Zhidong, whose modernizing reforms made Hubei (especially Wuhan) into a prosperous center of commerce and industry. The Huangshi/Daye area, south-east of Wuhan, became an important center of mining and metallurgy.
In 1911 the Wuchang Uprising took place in modern-day Wuhan, overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and establishing the Republic of China. In 1927 Wuhan became the seat of a government established by left-wing elements of the Kuomintang, led by Wang Jingwei; this government was later merged into Chiang Kai-shek's government in Nanjing. During World War II the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by Japan while the western parts remained under Chinese control.
During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Wuhan saw fighting between rival Red Guard factions.
As the fears of a nuclear war increased during the time of Sino-Soviet border conflicts in the late 1969s, the Xianning prefecture of Hubei was chosen as the site of Project 131, an underground military command headquarters.
The province - and Wuhan in particular - suffered severely from the 1954 Yangtze River Floods. Large scale dam construction followed, with the Gezhouba Dam on the Yangtze River near Yichang started in 1970 and completed in 1988; the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, further upstream, began in 1993. In the following years, authorities resettled millions of people from western Hubei to make way for the construction of the dam. A number of smaller dams have been constructed on the Yangtze's tributaries as well.
--from wikipedia.org
[edit] Geography
The Jianghan Plain takes up most of central and eastern Hubei, while the west and the peripheries are more mountainous, with ranges such as the Wudang Mountains, the Jingshan Mountains, the Daba Mountains, and the Wushan Mountains (in rough north-to-south order). The Dabie Mountains lie to the northeast, on the border with Henan and Anhui; the Tongbai Mountains lie to the north on the border with Henan; to the southeast the Mufu Mountains form the border with Jiangxi. The eastern half of the Three Gorges (Xiling Gorge and part of Wu Gorge) lies in western Hubei; the other half is in neighbouring Chongqing. The highest peak in Hubei is Shennong Peak, found in the Daba Mountains and in the forestry area of Shennongjia; it has an altitude of 3105 m.
The Yangtze River enters Hubei from the west via the Three Gorges; the Hanshui and Shen Nong Stream enter from the north. Shen Nong Stream is a tributary of the Yangtze River which has also been degraded by the Three Gorges Dam project. The Yangtze and Hanshui rivers meet at Wuhan, the provincial capital. Thousands of lakes dot the landscape, giving Hubei the name of: "Province of Lakes"; the largest of these lakes are Lake Liangzi and Lake Honghu. The Danjiangkou Reservoir lies on the border between Hubei and Henan.
Hubei has a subtropical climate with distinct seasons. Hubei has average temperatures of 1 - 6 °C in winter and of 24 - 30 °C in summer; punishing temperatures of 40 °C or above are famously associated with Wuhan, the provincial capital.
Important cities are Wuhan, Jingmen, Shiyan and Shashi.
--from wikipedia.org
[edit] Weather
Hubei has a sub-tropical monsoonal climate, with distinct contrast between the eastern plain and the western mountainous area. It has a mean annual temperature of 15°C-17°C. and sticky weather in the height of summer. With its absolute maximum temperature exceeding 40°C, Wuhan is one of the hottest places in China. The mean annual precipitation increases from 800 mm in the northwest to 1,500 mm or more in the southeast.
[edit] Cities
[edit] Other Places
[edit] Attractions
Hubei is home to the ancient state of Chu, a local state during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty that developed its own unique culture. Chu culture mixed with other influences, ancient and modern, endows Hubei richly with tourist resources. Famous attractions include:
- Jingzhou City
- Mount Jiugong (in Tongshan County)
- Mount Wudang
- Three Gorges
- Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan
- The Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, with extensive archeological and cultural exhibits and performance presentations of ancient music and dance.
In 1994, the ancient building complex of the Wudang Mountains was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The province also has historical sites connected with China's more recent history, such as the Wuchang Uprising Memorial in Wuhan, Project 131 site (a Cultural-Revolution-era underground military command center) in Xianning, and the National Mining Park (国家矿山公园) in Huangshi.
[edit] Culture
[edit] Language
People in Hubei speak Mandarin dialects; most of these dialects are classified as Southwestern Mandarin dialects, a group that also encompasses the Mandarin dialects of most of southwestern China.
--from wikipedia.org
[edit] Cuisine
Perhaps the most celebrated element of Hubei cuisine is the Wuchang fish, a freshwater bream that is commonly steamed.
[edit] Music
Types of traditional Chinese opera popular in Hubei include Hanju and Chuju.
[edit] Notables
[edit] Ethnic Groups
Hubei has been said to be one of the originating places of the Chinese people. Today many minority ethnic groups live in this area including: Miao, Tujia, Dong and some others.
[edit] Colleges and Universities
- Wuhan University
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology
- Huazhong Agricultural University
- Huazhong Normal University
- Zhongnan University of Finance and Economics
- China University of Geosciences
- Wuhan University of Science & technology
- Tongji Medical University
- Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering
- Hubei University
- Wuhan Technical University of Survey & Mapping
- Hubei University of Economics
- Hubei College of Education
- Wuhan Institute of Medical Sciences
- University of Hydraulic Electric Engineering(yichang)
- Wuhan Institute of Chemical Technology
- Yangtze University
- South-Central University for Nationalities
[edit] Area and Postal Codes
| City | Area Code | Postal Code | City | Area Code | Postal Code | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enshi (恩施) | 718 | 445000 | Ezhou (鄂州) | 711 | 436000 | ||
| Huanggang (黄冈) | 713 | 438000 | Huangshi (黄石) | 714 | 435000 | ||
| Jingmen (荆门) | 724 | 448000 | Jingzhou (荆州) | 716 | 434000 | ||
| Shiyan (十堰) | 719 | 442000 | Suizhou (随州) | 722 | 441300 | ||
| Tianmen (天门) | 728 | 431700 | Wuhan (武汉) | 27 | 430000 | ||
| Xiangfan (襄樊) | 710 | 441000 | Xianning (乡宁) | 715 | 437000 | ||
| Xiantao (仙桃) | 728 | 433000 | Xiaogan (孝感) | 712 | 432000 | ||
| Yichang (宜昌) | 717 | 443000 |
