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Wuhan

Wuhan (/wˈhæn/ , US also /wˈhɑːn, ˈw-/;[14] simplified Chinese: 武汉; traditional Chinese: 武漢; pinyin: Wǔhàn; [ù.xân] ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China.[15] With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the ninth most populous city in China.[16] It is also one of the nine national central cities.[17]

Wuhan
武汉市
Clockwise from top: Skyline of Wuhan from the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, Tortoise Mountain TV Tower, causeway at East Lake, Guiyuan Temple, Yellow Crane Tower
Nicknames: 
  • 九省通衢[1][2] "China's Thoroughfare"
  • The Chicago of China[3][4][5]
  • 江城 ("River City")
Motto(s): 
武汉,每天不一样!
("Wuhan, Different Every Day!")
Location of Wuhan City jurisdiction in Hubei
Wuhan
Location of the city center in Hubei
Wuhan
Wuhan (Eastern China)
Wuhan
Wuhan (China)
Coordinates (Wuhan municipal government): 30°35′36″N 114°18′17″E / 30.5934°N 114.3046°E / 30.5934; 114.3046
CountryChina
ProvinceHubei
Settled1500 BC
First unifiedJanuary 1, 1927[7]
Hancheng walls built223 BC
Municipal seatJiang'an District
Government
 • TypePrefecture-level and sub-provincial city
 • BodyWuhan Municipal People's Congress
 • CCP SecretaryGuo Yuanqiang
 • Congress ChairmanHu Lishan
 • MayorCheng Yongwen
 • CPPCC ChairmanYang Zhi
Area
 • City8,494.41 km2 (3,279.71 sq mi)
 • Urban
(2018)[10]
1,528 km2 (590 sq mi)
Population
 (2020)
 • City12,326,500[6]
DemonymWuhanese
Languages
 • LanguagesWuhan dialect, Standard Chinese
Major ethnic groups
 • Major ethnic groupsHan
Time zoneUTC+08:00 (China Standard)
Postal code
430000–430400
Area code0027
ISO 3166 codeCN-HB-01
GDP2021
 – Total
 - Per capita
  • CNY 143,729
  • US$22,284 (nominal) (11th)
 - Growth 12.2% (2021)
License plate prefixes
  • 鄂A
  • 鄂O (police and authorities)
HDI (2015)0.839[12] (9th) – very high
City treeMetasequoia[13]
City flowerPlum blossom
Website武汉政府门户网站 (Wuhan Government Web Portal) (in Chinese); English Wuhan (in English)
Wuhan
"Wuhan" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese武汉
Traditional Chinese武漢
Literal meaning"[The combined cities of] Wu[chang] and Han[kou]"

Wuhan historically served as a busy city port for commerce and trading with some crucial influences on Chinese history. The name "Wuhan" came from the city's historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, which are collectively known as the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (武汉三镇). Wuhan lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain, at the confluence of the Yangtze river and its largest tributary, the Han River, and is known as "Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare" (九省通衢).[1] Wuhan was the site of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising against the Qing Dynasty which ended 2,000 years of dynastic rule. Wuhan was briefly the capital of China in 1927 under the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT) government,[18] and later served as the wartime capital of China for ten months in 1937 during WWII.[19][20] On December 31, 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus that later caused the COVID-19 pandemic, was first discovered in Wuhan[21][22] and the city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic in January 2020.[23]

Wuhan is considered the political, economic, financial, commercial, cultural, and educational center of Central China.[16] It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads, and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities.[24] Because of its key role in domestic transportation, Wuhan is sometimes referred to as "the Chicago of China" by foreign sources.[3][4][5] The "Golden Waterway" of the Yangtze River and the Han River traverse the urban area and divide Wuhan into the three districts of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the city. The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity, is located nearby. Historically, Wuhan has suffered risks of flooding,[25] prompting the government to alleviate the situation by introducing ecologically friendly absorption mechanisms.[26]

While Wuhan has been a traditional manufacturing hub for decades, it is also one of the areas promoting modern industrial changes in China. Wuhan has three national development zones, four scientific and technological development parks, over 350 research institutes, 1,656 high tech enterprises, numerous enterprise incubators and investments from 230 Fortune Global 500 firms.[27] It produced GDP (nominal) of US$274 billion in 2021. The Dongfeng Motor Corporation, an automobile manufacturer, is headquartered in Wuhan. The city is home to multiple notable institutes of higher education, including Wuhan University[28] and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Wuhan is a major city in the world by scientific research outputs and it ranks 10th globally, 6th in the Asia-Pacific and 5th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou).[29] In 2017, Wuhan was designated as a Creative City by UNESCO, in the field of design.[30] Wuhan is classified as a Beta- (global second tier) city together with seven other cities in China, including Changsha, Dalian, Jinan, Shenyang, Xiamen, Xi'an and Zhengzhou by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.[31] Wuhan is also one of the world's top 100 financial centers, according to the Global Financial Centres Index.[32]

Etymology edit

The name "Wuhan" comes from the two major cities on the banks of the Yangtze River that make up the Wuhan metropolis: "Wu" refers to the city of Wuchang (Chinese: 武昌), which lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze, while "Han" refers to the city of Hankou (Chinese: 汉口), which lies on the northern bank of the Yangtze. "Hankou" means "Mouth of the Han", from its position at the confluence of the Han with the Yangtze River.

In 1926, the Northern Expedition reached the Wuhan area and it was decided to merge Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang into one city in order to make a new capital for Nationalist China. On January 1, 1927,[33] the resulting city was proclaimed as '武漢' (the traditional Chinese characters for 'Wuhan'), which was later simplified as '武汉' (also 'Wuhan').[34][35][36]

History edit

Antiquity era edit

 
Panlongcheng, located in the southernmost area of the Erligang culture

The Wuhan area has been settled for 3,500 years. Panlongcheng, an archaeological site primarily associated with the Erligang culture (c. 1510 – c. 1460 BC) (being sparsely populated during the earlier Erlitou period), is located in modern-day Huangpi District of Wuhan.

During the Western Zhou the State of E, which gives its name to the single character abbreviation for Hubei province, controlled the present-day Wuchang area south of the Yangtze River. After the conquest of the E state in 863 BC, the present-day Wuhan area was controlled by the State of Chu for the rest of the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou periods. After the State of Huang was conquered by State of Chu in the summer of 648 BC,[37] the people of Huang were moved into the area in and around present-day Wuhan. Local geographical terms including the name of Wuhan's Huangpi District were named after the State of Huang.[citation needed] Chu was in turn conquered by Qin in 223 BC.

Imperial China edit

 
Yellow Crane Tower

During the Han dynasty, Hanyang became a fairly busy port. The Battle of Xiakou in AD 203 and Battle of Jiangxia five years later were fought in the region over control of Jiangxia Commandery, territories of which included much of present-day eastern Hubei. In the winter of 208/9, one of the most famous battles in Chinese history and a central event in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms—the Battle of Red Cliffs—took place near the Yangtze River, with the cliffs near Wuhan identified as one of the potential locations.[38] Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang (AD 206) and Wuchang (AD 223). The latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD 223, the Yellow Crane Tower, one of the Four Great Towers of China, was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River by order of Sun Quan, leader of the Eastern Wu. The tower become a sacred site of Taoism.[39]

Due to tensions between the Eastern Wu and Cao Wei kingdoms, in the autumn of 228,[a] Cao Rui, grandson of Cao Cao and the second emperor of the state of Cao Wei, ordered the general Man Chong to lead troops to Xiakou (夏口; in present-day Wuhan).[41][42] In 279, Wang Jun and his army conquered strategic locations in Wu territory such as Xiling (in present-day Yichang, Hubei), Xiakou (夏口; present-day Hankou) and Wuchang (武昌; present-day Ezhou, Hubei).

During the Northern and Southern dynasties period, the Wuhan area was part of the successive Southern dynasty states Liu Song (420–479), Southern Qi (479–502), Liang,[citation needed] and Western Liang.[citation needed]

In fall 550, Hou Jing sent Ren Yue to attack both Xiao Daxin and Xiao Fan's son Xiao Si (蕭嗣). Ren killed Xiao Si in battle, and Xiao Daxin, unable to resist, surrendered, allowing Hou to take his domain under control. Meanwhile, Xiao Guan, who had by now settled at Jiangxia (江夏, in modern Wuhan), was planning to attack Hou, but this drew Xiao Yi's ire—believing that Xiao Guan was intending to contend for the throne—and he sent Wang to attack Xiao Guan. In summer 567, Chen Xu commissioned Wu Mingche as the governor of Xiang Province and had him command a major part of the troops against Hua, along with Chunyu Liang (淳于量). The opposing sides met at Zhuankou (沌口, in modern Wuhan).

The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts (especially poetry) and for intellectual studies. Cui Hao, a celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty, visited the Yellow Crane Tower in the early 8th century; his poem made it the most celebrated building in southern China.[43]

In spring 877, Wang Xianzhi captured E Prefecture (鄂州, in modern Wuhan). He then returned north, joining forces with Huang again, and they surrounded Song Wei at Song Prefecture (宋州, in modern Shangqiu, Henan). In winter 877, Huang Chao pillaged Qi and Huang (黃州, in modern Wuhan) Prefectures.

Before Kublai Khan arrived in 1259, word reached him that Möngke had died. Kublai decided to keep the death of his brother secret and continued the attack on the Wuhan area, near the Yangtze. The present-day Wuying Pagoda was constructed at the end of the Song dynasty between attacks by the Mongolian forces. Under the Mongol rulers (Yuan dynasty) (after 1301), the Wuchang prefecture, headquartered in the town, became the capital of Hubei province. Hankou, from the Ming to late Qing, was under the administration of the local government in Hanyang, although it was already one of the four major national markets (zh:四大名镇) of the Ming dynasty.

Hanyang's Guiyuan Temple was completed in the 15th year of Shunzhi (1658).[44]

By the dawn of the 18th century, Hankou had become one of China's top four trading centers. In the late 19th century, railroads were extended on a north–south axis through the city, making Wuhan an important transshipment point between rail and river traffic. Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign-controlled merchant districts. These districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities. The French had a concession in Hankou.[45] During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Wuhan area was controlled for many years by rebel forces and the Yellow Crane Tower, Xingfu Temple, Zhuodaoquan Temple and other buildings were repurposed or damaged. During the Second Opium War (known in the West as the Arrow War, 1856–1860), the government of the Qing dynasty was defeated by the western powers and signed the Treaties of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking, which stipulated eleven cities or regions (including Hankou) as trading ports. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, led four warships up the Yangtze River in Wuhan to collect the information needed for opening the trading port in Wuhan.

In the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Smith Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port. On the basis of the Convention of Peking, Parkes concluded the Hankou Lend-Lease Treaty with Guan Wen, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei. It brought an area of 30.53 square kilometers (11.79 sq mi) along the Yangtze River (from latter-day Jianghan Road to Hezuo Road) to become a British Concession and permitted Britain to set up its consulate in the concession.

In 1862, Russian tea merchants arrived in the treaty port of Hankou. Russians in Hankou established four factories using assembly lines and machinery to produce brick tea, and became the city's richest industrialists in what would become the Russian concession.[46][47] Japanese immigrants, mainly traders, also started arriving in 1874.[46]

 
Wuhan in 1864
 
Foreign concessions along the Hankou Bund c. 1900.

In 1889, Zhang Zhidong was transferred from Viceroy of Liangguang (Guangdong and Guangxi provinces) to Viceroy of Huguang (Hunan and Hubei provinces). He governed the province for 18 years, until 1907. During this period, he elucidated the theory of "Chinese learning as the basis, Western learning for application," known as the ti-yong ideal. He set up many heavy industries, founded Hanyang Steel Plant, Daye Iron Mine, Pingxiang Coal Mine and Hubei Arsenal and set up local textile industries, boosting the flourishing modern industry in Wuhan. Meanwhile, he initiated education reform, opened dozens of modern educational organizations successively, such as Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) Academy of Classical Learning, Civil General Institute, Military General Institute, Foreign Languages Institute and Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) General Normal School, and selected a great many students for study overseas, which well promoted the development of China's modern education. Furthermore, he trained a modern military and organized a modern army including a zhen and a xie (both zhen and xie are military units in the Qing dynasty) in Hubei.

Originally known as the Hubei Arsenal, the Hanyang Arsenal was founded in 1891, who diverted funds from the Nanyang Fleet in Guangdong to build the arsenal. It cost about 250,000 pounds sterling and was built in 4 years.[48] On April 23, 1894, construction was completed and the arsenal, occupying some 40 acres (160,000 m2), could start production of small-caliber cannons. It built magazine-fed rifles, Gruson quick fire guns, and cartridges.[49]

In 1896, the Russian Empire also acquired a concession in Hankou.[50]

Wuchang Uprising edit

 
Wuchang Uprising Memorial, the original site of revolutionary government in 1911
 
Present-day Wuhan area in 1915

By 1900, according to Collier's magazine, Hankou, the Yangtze River boom town, was "the St. Louis and Chicago of China."[4] On October 10, 1911, Sun Yat-sen's followers launched the Wuchang Uprising,[51] which led to the collapse of the Qing state and 2,000 years of dynastic rule,[52] as well as the establishment of the Republic of China.[53]

The Wuchang Uprising of October 1911, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, originated in Wuhan.[51] Before the uprising, anti-Qing secret societies were active in Wuhan. In September 1911, the outbreak of the protests in Sichuan forced the Qing authorities to send part of the New Army garrisoned in Wuhan to suppress the rebellion.[54] On September 14 the Literary Society (文學社) and the Progressive Association (共進會), two local revolutionary organizations in Hubei,[54] set up joint headquarters in Wuchang and planned for an uprising. On the morning of October 9, a bomb at the office of the political arrangement exploded prematurely and alerted local authorities.[55] The proclamation for the uprising, beadroll and the revolutionaries’ official seal fell into the hands of Rui Cheng, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei, who demolished the uprising headquarters the same day and set out to arrest the revolutionaries listed in the beadroll.[55] This forced the revolutionaries to launch the uprising earlier than planned.[51]

On the night of October 10, the revolutionaries fired shots to signal the uprising at the engineering barracks of Hubei New Army.[51] They then led the New Army of all barracks to join the revolution.[56] Under the guidance of Wu Zhaolin, Cai Jimin and others, this revolutionary army seized the official residence of the governor and government offices.[54] Rui Cheng fled in panic into the Chuyu ship. Zhang Biao, the commander of the Qing army, also fled the city. On the morning of the 11th, the revolutionary army took the whole city of Wuchang, but leaders such as Jiang Yiwu and Sun Wu disappeared.[51] Thus the leaderless revolutionary army recommended Li Yuanhong, the assistant governor of the Qing army, as the commander-in-chief.[57] Li founded the Hubei Military Government, proclaimed the abolition of the Qing rule in Hubei, the founding of the Republic of China and published an open telegram calling for other provinces to join the revolution.[51][54]

As the revolution spread to other parts of the country, the Qing government concentrated loyalist military forces to suppress the uprising in Wuhan. From October 17 to December 1, the revolutionary army and local volunteers defended the city in the Battle of Yangxia against better armed and more numerous Qing forces commanded by Yuan Shikai. Huang Xing would arrive in Wuhan in early November to take command of the revolutionary army.[54] After fierce fighting and heavy casualties, Qing forces seized Hankou and Hanyang. But Yuan agreed to halt the advance on Wuchang and participated in peace talks, which would eventually lead to the return of Sun Yat-sen from exile, founding of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912.[53][58] Through the Wuchang Uprising, Wuhan is known as the birthplace of the Xinhai Revolution, named after the Xinhai year on the Chinese calendar.[59] The city has several museums and memorials to the revolution and the thousands of martyrs who died defending the revolution.

Republic of China edit

 
A map of Wuhan painted by the Japanese in 1930, with Hankou being the most prosperous sector

With the northern extension of the Northern Expedition, the center of the Great Revolution shifted from the Pearl River basin to the Yangtze River basin. On November 26, the Kuomintang Central Political Committee decided to move the capital from Guangzhou to Wuhan. In mid-December, most of the KMT central executive commissioners and national government commissioners arrived in Wuhan, set up the temporary joint conference of central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners, performed the top functions of central party headquarters and National Government, declared they would work in Wuhan on January 1, 1927, and decided to combine the towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang into Wuhan City, called "Capital District". The new national government, later known as "Wuhan nationalist government", was based in the Nanyang Building in Hankou, while the central party headquarters and other organizations chose their locations in Hankou or Wuchang.[18]

In March 1927, Mao Zedong appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing Wang Jingwei leader. The first phase of the Northern Expedition was interrupted by the political split in the Kuomintang following the formation of the Nanjing faction in April 1927 against the existing faction in Wuhan.[60] Members of the Chinese Communist Party, who had survived the April 12 massacre, met at Wuhan and reelected Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu) as the Party's Secretary General.[61] The split was partially motivated by the purge of the Communists within the party, which marked the end of the First United Front, and Chiang Kai-shek briefly stepped down as the commander of the National Revolutionary Army.[62]

In June 1927, Stalin sent a telegram to the Communists in Wuhan, calling for the mobilization of an army of workers and peasants.[63] This alarmed Wang Jingwei, who decided to break with the Communists and come to terms with Chiang Kai-shek. The Wuhan coup was a political shift made on July 15, 1927, by Wang Jingwei towards Chiang Kai-shek, and his Shanghai-based rival in the Kuomintang. The Wuhan Nationalist Government was established in Wuhan on February 21, 1927, and ended by August 19, 1927.[64] After the end of the Northern Expedition, Hankou was elevated to a centrally-controlled municipality.

In the 1931 China floods, one of the deadliest flood disasters in world history, Wuhan was a refuge for flood victims from outlying areas, who had been arriving since the late spring. But when the city itself was inundated in the early summer, and after a catastrophic dike failure just before 6:00 AM on July 27,[65]: 270  an estimated 782,189 urban citizens and rural refugees were left homeless. The flood covered an area of 32 square miles and the city was flooded under many feet of water for close to three months.[65]: 269–270  Large numbers gathered on flood islands throughout the city, with 30,000 sheltering on a railway embankment in central Hankou. With little food and a complete breakdown in sanitation, thousands soon began to succumb to diseases.[66] Jin Shilong, Senior Engineer at the Hubei Flood Prevention Agency, described the flooding:

There was no warning, only a sudden great wall of water. Most of Wuhan's buildings in those days were only one story high, and for many people there was no escape – they died by the tens of thousands. ... I was just coming off duty at the company's main office, a fairly new three-story building near the center of town ... When I heard the terrible noise and saw the wall of water coming, I raced to the top story of the building. ... I was in one of the tallest and strongest buildings left standing. At that time no one knew whether the water would subside or rise even higher.[65]: 270 

The high-water mark was reached on August 19 at Hankou, with the water level exceeding 16 m (53 ft) above normal.[67][68] In 1936, when natural disaster struck Central China with widespread flooding affecting Hebei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Wuhan and Chongqing caused by the Yangtze and Huai Rivers bursting their banks, Ong Seok Kim, as Chairman of the Sitiawan Fundraising and Disaster Relief Committee, raised money and materials in support of the victims.[69][70][71][72]

 
The gunboat Zhongshan

During the Second Sino-Japanese War and following the fall of Nanking in December 1937, Wuhan had become the provisional capital of China's Kuomintang government, and became another focal point of pitched air battles beginning in early 1938 between modern monoplane bomber and fighter aircraft of the Imperial Japanese forces and the Chinese Air Force, which included support from the Soviet Volunteer Group in both planes and personnel, as U.S. support in war materials waned. As the battle raged on through 1938, Wuhan and the surrounding region had become the site of the Battle of Wuhan. After being taken by the Japanese in late 1938, Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China.

 
Chiang Kai-Shek inspecting Chinese soldiers in Wuhan as Japanese forces approach the city

In early October 1938, Japanese troops moved east and north in the outskirts of Wuhan. As a result, numerous companies and enterprises and large numbers of people had to withdraw from Wuhan to the west of Hubei and Sichuan. The KMT navy undertook the responsibility of defending the Yangtze River on patrol and covering the withdrawal. On October 24, while overseeing the waters of the Yangtze River near the town of Jinkou (Jiangxia District in Wuhan) in Wuchang, the KMT gunboat Zhongshan came up against six Japanese aircraft. Though two were eventually shot down, the Zhongshan sank with 25 casualties. Raised from the bottom of the Yangtze River in 1997, and restored at a local shipyard, the Zhongshan has been moved to a purpose-built museum in Wuhan's suburban Jiangxia District, which opened on September 26, 2011.[citation needed]

As a key center on the Yangtze, Wuhan was an important base for Japanese operations in China.[73] On December 18, 1944, in a planned strategic move, and as revenge for the torture and execution of three captured American pilots by Japanese soldiers in the city, Wuhan was bombed by 77 American bombers with the approval of Chiang Kai-Shek. This set off a firestorm that destroyed much of the military resources of the city.[74] For the next three days, Wuhan was bombed by the Americans, destroying all of the docks and warehouses of Wuhan, as well as the Japanese air bases in the city. The air raids also killed thousands of Chinese civilians.[74] "According to casualty statistics compiled by Hankou city in 1946, more than 20,000 were killed or injured in the December bombings of 1944."[75]

Wuhan returned to Chinese control in September 1945. Administratively, Wuchang and Hanyang were initially combined into a new City of Wuchang, but in October 1946 were separated into the City of Wuchang (including Wuchang only) and the County of Hanyang. Hankou became a centrally controlled municipality in August 1947. Militarily, the Wuhan Forward Headquarters was established in Wuhan, headed by Bai Chongxi.[76]

 
People's Liberation Army troops at Zhongshan Avenue, Hankou on May 16, 1949

During the later stages of the Chinese Civil War, Bai sought to broker peace, proposing that the Communist Party could rule northern China while the Nationalist government retained southern China. This was rejected, and on May 15, 1949, Bai and the Wuhan garrison retreated from the city. People's Liberation Army troops entered Wuhan on the afternoon of Monday, May 16, 1949.[77][78][79]

People's Republic edit

 
In his poem "Swimming" (1956), engraved on the 1954 Flood Memorial in Wuhan, Mao Zedong envisions "walls of stone" to be erected upstream.[80]

The Changjiang Water Resources Commission was reestablished in February 1950 with its headquarters in Wuhan. From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to an unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. In 1969, a large stone monument was erected in the riverside park in Hankou honoring the heroic deeds in fighting the 1954 Yangtze River floods.

Before construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, Hunslet Engine Company built two extra heavy 0-8-0 locomotives for loading the train ferries for crossing the Yangtze River in Wuhan.

The project of building the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also known as the First Yangtze River Bridge, was regarded as one of the key projects during the first five-year plan. On October 25, 1955, construction began on the bridge proper. The same day in 1957, the whole project was completed and an opening-to-traffic ceremony was held on October 15. The First Yangtze River Bridge united the Beijing–Hankou railway with the Guangdong–Hankou railway into the Beijing–Guangzhou railway, making Wuhan a 'thoroughfare to nine provinces' (九省通衢) in name and in fact.

After Chengdu Conference, Mao went to Chongqing and Wuhan in April to inspect the countryside and factories. In Wuhan, he called all the leaders of provinces and municipalities who had not attended Chengdu Conference to report their work. Tian Jiaying, the secretary of Mao, said that Wuhan Conference was a supplement to Chengdu Conference.[81]

In July 1967, civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident ("July 20th Incident"), an armed conflict between two hostile groups who were fighting for control over the city at the height of the Cultural Revolution.[82]

In 1981, the Wuhan City Government commenced reconstruction of the Yellow Crane Tower at a new location, about 1 km (0.62 mi) from the original site, and it was completed in 1985. In 1957, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was built with one trestle of the bridge on the site of the tower, which had been last destroyed in 1884.[83]

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, students in Wuhan blocked the Yangtze River Railway bridge and another 4,000 gathered at the railway station.[84]: 400  About one thousand students staged a railroad 'sit-in'. Rail traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Dalian lines was interrupted. The students also urged employees of major state-owned enterprises to go on strike.[84]: 405  The situation was so tense that residents reportedly began a bank run and resorted to panic-buying.[84]: 408 

In the wake of the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, protests broke out throughout China, including in Wuhan.[85]

On June 22, 2000, a Wuhan Airlines flight from Enshi to Wuhan was forced to circle for 30 minutes due to thunderstorms. The aircraft eventually crashed on the banks of Han River in Hanyang District,[86] all on-board perished (there were varying accounts of number of crews and passengers). In addition, the crash also killed 7 people on the ground.[87][88][89]

Chinese protesters organized boycotts of the French-owned retail chain Carrefour in major Chinese cities including Kunming, Hefei and Wuhan, accusing the French nation of pro-secessionist conspiracy and anti-Chinese racism.[90] The BBC reported that hundreds of people demonstrated in Beijing, Wuhan, Hefei, Kunming and Qingdao.[91][92] On May 19, 2011, Fang Binxing, the Principal of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (also known as "Father of China's Great Fire Wall"[93]) was hit on the chest by a shoe thrown at him by a Huazhong University of Science and Technology student who calls herself "hanjunyi" (寒君依, or 小湖北) while Fang was giving a lecture at Wuhan University.[94][95][96][97][98][99]

The city has been subject to devastating floods, which are now supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam, a project which was completed in 2008.[100][101] The 2008 Chinese winter storms damaged water supply equipment in Wuhan: up to 100,000 people were out of running water when several water pipes burst, cutting the supply to local households.[102] The 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave hit Wuhan on July 3.[103] In the 2010 China floods, the Han River at Wuhan experienced its worst flooding in twenty years, as officials continued sandbagging efforts along the Han and Yangtze Rivers in the city and checked reservoirs.[104] In the 2011 China floods, Wuhan was flooded, with parts of the city losing power.[105] In the 2016 China floods, Wuhan saw 570 mm (22 in) of rainfall during the first week of July, surpassing the record that fell on the city in 1991. A red alert for heavy rainfall was issued on July 2, the same day that eight people died after a 15-meter (49 ft) section of a 2 m (6.6 ft) tall wall collapsed on top of them.[106] The city's subway system, the Wuhan Metro was partially submerged as was the main railway station.[107] At least 14 city residents were killed, one was missing, and more than 80,000 were relocated.[108]

In early July 2019, there were protests against plans for a new incinerator in Xinzhou District.

The 2019 Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan in October.[109][110]

In December 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, was first discovered in Wuhan,[21][22] and the city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic in January 2020.[23] Wuhan and other Hubei cities were placed under lockdown for nearly three months to contain the disease.[23][111] On April 8, 2020, the Wuhan lockdown officially came to an end after no new domestic cases were reported in Hubei province.[112] The virus is believed to have been a mutation of a virus that existed in bats which came from a wet market in Wuhan, although no bats are sold there.[113] There were, however, some 38 other species of animals offered, including marmots, raccoons, badgers, hedgehogs, peacocks, and various reptiles, including some endangered species.[relevant?]

Geography edit

Overview edit

 
Map including the Wuhan area (AMS, 1953)

Wuhan is in east-central Hubei, at latitude 29° 58'–31° 22' N and longitude 113° 41'–115° 05' E. Wuhan sits at the confluence of the Han River flowing into the Yangtze River at the East of the Jianghan Plain along the Yangtze's middle reaches.

The metropolitan area comprises three parts—Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang—commonly called the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (hence the name "Wuhan", combining "Wu" from the first city and "Han" from the other two). The consolidation of these cities occurred in 1927 and Wuhan was thereby established. The three former cities face each other across the rivers and are linked by bridges, including one of the first modern bridges in China, known as the "First Bridge".

  • Wuchang lies south east of the Yangtze River that separates it from both Hankou and Hanyang.
  • Hankou sits north of the Yangtze River separating it from Wuchang. Hankou is north of the Han River separating it from Hanyang.
  • Hanyang lies west of the Yangtze separating it from Wuchang. Hanyang is south of the Han river separating it from Hankou.
 
East Lake

It is simple in terrain—low and flat in the middle and hilly in the south, with the Yangtze and Han rivers winding through the city. The She River enters the Yangtze in Huangpi District. Wuhan occupies a land area of 8,494.41 square kilometers (3,279.71 sq mi), most of which is alluvial plain and decorated with hills and a great number of lakes and ponds. Water makes up one quarter of Wuhan's urban territory, which is the highest percentage among major cities in China.[114] Wuhan has nearly 200 lakes, including the East Lake of 33 km2, and Tangxun Lake, which are the largest lakes entirely within a city in China.[114]

Other well-known lakes include South Lake and Sand Lake. Liangzi Lake, the largest lake by surface area in Hubei province, is located in the southeast of Jiangxia District. At 709 m (2,326 ft) above sea level, the highest point in Wuhan is the main peak of Yunwu Mountain (云雾山) in northwestern Huangpi District. There are also several mountains within the city limits of Wuhan including Mount Luojia (珞珈山) in Wuchang District as well as Mount Hong (洪山) and Mount Yujia (喻家山/瑜珈山) in Hongshan District.[115]

Climate edit

Wuhan's climate is humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa) with abundant rainfall in summer and four distinctive seasons. Wuhan is known for its humid summers, when dewpoints can often reach 26 °C (79 °F) or more.[116] Historically, along with Chongqing and Nanjing, Wuhan is referred to as one of the "Three Furnacelike Cities" along the Yangtze River for their hot summers.[117] However, the climate data of recent years suggests that Wuhan is no longer among the top tier of "The hottest cities in summer" list, the New Four Furnacelike Cities are Chongqing, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanchang.[118][119] Spring and autumn are generally mild, while winter is cool with quite low rainfall and occasional snow. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 4.1 °C (39.4 °F) in January to 29.3 °C (84.7 °F) in July.[120] Annual precipitation totals just under 1,320 mm (52 in),[120] the majority of which falls from April to July; the annual mean temperature is 17.4 °C (63.3 °F),[120] the frost-free period lasts 211 to 272 days.[121] With monthly possible sunshine percentage ranging from 30 percent in January to 53 percent in August, the city proper receives 1,783 hours of bright sunshine annually.[122] Extreme low and high temperatures recorded are −18.1 °C (−1 °F) on January 31, 1977, and 39.7 °C (103 °F) on July 27, 2017 (unofficial record of 41.3 °C (106 °F) in 1934).[when?][123][124]

Climate data for Wuhan (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1951–present)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 25.4
(77.7)
29.1
(84.4)
32.4
(90.3)
35.1
(95.2)
36.1
(97.0)
37.8
(100.0)
39.7
(103.5)
39.6
(103.3)
37.6
(99.7)
34.4
(93.9)
30.4
(86.7)
24.2
(75.6)
39.7
(103.5)
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) 8.3
(46.9)
11.4
(52.5)
16.3
(61.3)
22.7
(72.9)
27.3
(81.1)
30.4
(86.7)
33.2
(91.8)
32.8
(91.0)
28.9
(84.0)
23.3
(73.9)
17.1
(62.8)
10.8
(51.4)
21.9
(71.4)
Daily mean °C (°F) 4.1
(39.4)
7.0
(44.6)
11.6
(52.9)
17.8
(64.0)
22.7
(72.9)
26.3
(79.3)
29.3
(84.7)
28.6
(83.5)
24.3
(75.7)
18.3
(64.9)
12.0
(53.6)
6.2
(43.2)
17.4
(63.2)
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) 1.0
(33.8)
3.6
(38.5)
7.9
(46.2)
13.7
(56.7)
18.8
(65.8)
23.0
(73.4)
26.2
(79.2)
25.4
(77.7)
20.8
(69.4)
14.8
(58.6)
8.4
(47.1)
2.8
(37.0)
13.9
(57.0)
Record low °C (°F) −18.1
(−0.6)
−14.8
(5.4)
−5.0
(23.0)
−0.3
(31.5)
7.2
(45.0)
13.0
(55.4)
17.3
(63.1)
16.4
(61.5)
10.1
(50.2)
1.3
(34.3)
−7.1
(19.2)
−10.1
(13.8)
−18.1
(−0.6)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 52.5
(2.07)
66.4
(2.61)
91.0
(3.58)
137.5
(5.41)
160.6
(6.32)
212.9
(8.38)
255.5
(10.06)
106.3
(4.19)
72.2
(2.84)
66.4
(2.61)
58.2
(2.29)
30.7
(1.21)
1,310.2
(51.57)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) 9.7 9.9 12.6 11.6 12.5 12.0 11.1 9.7 7.7 8.5 9.1 7.2 121.6
Average snowy days 4.3 2.4 0.9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.4 1.4 9.4
Average relative humidity (%) 76 76 75 74 74 78 76 77 75 76 77 74 76
Mean monthly sunshine hours 95.4 97.8 126.4 152.5 165.9 155.8 210.9 214.8 166.0 149.1 132.1 116.7 1,783.4
Percent possible sunshine 30 31 34 39 39 37 49 53 45 43 37 40 40
Source: China Meteorological Administration[120][125][122]

Government and politics edit

 
The main gate of Wuhan Municipal Party Committee

Wuhan is a sub-provincial city. Municipal government is regulated by the local Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by the Wuhan CCP Secretary (Chinese: 武汉市委书记), Wang Zhonglin (王忠林). The local CCP issues administrative orders, collects taxes, manages the economy, and directs a standing committee of the Municipal People's Congress in making policy decisions and overseeing the local government.

Government officials include the Mayor of Wuhan (市长), Cheng Yongwen (程用文), and vice-mayors. Numerous bureaus focus on law, public security, and other affairs. Zhou Xianwang (周先旺) was mayor from 2018 to 2021.

Administrative divisions edit

The sub-provincial city of Wuhan currently comprises 13 districts.[126] As of the Sixth Census of China in 2010, the 13 districts comprised 160 township-level divisions including 156 subdistricts, 3 towns, 1 townships.[7][8]

Map District Chinese (S) Pinyin Population
(2010 census)[127][7][8]
Area (km2)[9] Density
(/km2)
Central Districts 6,434,373 888.42 7,242
Jiang'an 江岸区 Jiāng'àn Qū 895,635 64.24 13,942
Jianghan 江汉区 Jiānghàn Qū 683,492 33.43 20,445
Qiaokou 硚口区 Qiáokǒu Qū 828,644 46.39 17,863
Hanyang 汉阳区 Hànyáng Qū 792,183[128] 108.34 7,312
Wuchang 武昌区 Wǔchāng Qū 1,199,127 87.42 13,717
Qingshan 青山区 Qīngshān Qū 485,375 68.40 7,096
Hongshan 洪山区 Hóngshān Qū 1,549,917[129] 480.20 3,228
Suburban and Rural Districts 3,346,271 7,605.99 440
Dongxihu 东西湖区 Dōngxīhú Qū 451,880 439.19 1,029
Hannan 汉南区 Hànnán Qū 114,970 287.70 400
Caidian 蔡甸区 Càidiàn Qū 410,888 1,108.10 371
Jiangxia 江夏区 Jiāngxià Qū 644,835 2,010.00 321
Huangpi 黄陂区 Huángpí Qū 874,938 2,261.00 387
Xinzhou 新洲区 Xīnzhōu Qū 848,760 1,500.00 566
Water Region (水域) 4,748 - -
Total 9,785,392 8,494.41 1,152


Diplomatic missions edit

There are four countries that have consulates in Wuhan:

Consulate Year Consular District
  France Consulate General Wuhan[130] October 10, 1998 Hubei/Hunan/Jiangxi
  United States Consulate General Wuhan[131] November 20, 2008 Hubei/Hunan/Henan/Jiangxi
  Republic of Korea Consulate General Wuhan[132] October 25, 2010 Hubei/Hunan/Henan/Jiangxi
  United Kingdom Consulate General Wuhan[133] January 8, 2015 Hubei/Henan

The current U.S. Consul General, the Honorable Mr. Jamie Fouss, was posted to Wuhan in August 2017. The office of the U.S. Consulate General, Central China (located in Wuhan) celebrated its official opening on November 20, 2008, and is the first new American consulate in China in over 20 years.[134][135]

In 2015, Japan[136] and Russia[137] announced their intentions to establish consular offices in Wuhan.

Economy edit

 
Wuhan Tiandi shopping plaza in Jiang'an District

Up until the 21st century, Wuhan was largely an agricultural region. Since 2004 it has been a focal point of the Rise of Central China Plan, which aims to build less-developed inland economies into hubs of advanced manufacturing.

Since 1890,[114] the steel industry has been the backbone of Wuhan's industry.[138] In 2010, automobile industry exceeded GDP for Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) steel for the first time. There are 5 car manufacturers, including Dongfeng Honda, Citroën, SAIC-GM, DFM Passenger Vehicle and Dongfeng Renault. Dongfeng-Citroen Automobile Co., Ltd is headquartered in the city.[138]

As of 2016, Wuhan has attracted foreign investment from over 80 countries, with 5,973 foreign-invested enterprises established in the city with a total capital injection of $22.45 billion USD.[139] Among these, about 50 French companies including Renault and PSA Group have operations in the city, representing over one third of French investment in China, and the highest level of French investment in any Chinese city.[140]

Wuhan is an important center for economy, trade, finance, transportation, information technology, and education in China. Its major industries include optic-electronic, automobile manufacturing, iron and steel manufacturing, new pharmaceutical sector, biology engineering, new materials industry and environmental protection. Environmental sustainability is highlighted in Wuhan's list of emerging industries, which include energy efficiency technology and renewable energy.[139]

As of 2021, Wuhan is ranked among the world's top 100 financial centers, according to the Global Financial Centres Index.[32]

 
Wuhan CBD
 
Wuhan Yangtze River Tunnel of Road and Rail

Industrial zones edit

Major industrial zones in Wuhan include in chronological order:

  • Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone

Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone is a national level industrial zone incorporated in 1993.[141] Its current zone size is about 10–25 square km and it plans to expand to 25–50 square km. Industries encouraged in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone include Auto-mobile Production/Assembly, Biotechnology/Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals Production and Processing, Food/Beverage Processing, Heavy Industry, and Telecommunications Equipment.

  • Wuhan Export Processing Zone

Wuhan Export Processing Zone was established in 2000. It is located in Wuhan Economic and Technology Development Zone, planned to cover 2.7 square kilometers (1.0 square mile) of land. The first 0.7-square-kilometer (0.3-square-mile) area has already been created.[142]

Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone is a national level high-tech development zone. Optical-electronics, telecommunications, and equipment manufacturing are the core industries of Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone (ELHTZ) while software outsourcing and electronics are also encouraged. ELHTZ is China's largest production center for optoelectronic products with key players like Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable,[143] (the largest fiber-optical cable maker in China), and Fiberhome Telecommunications.[144] Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone also represents the development center for China's laser industry with key players such as HG Tech[145] and Chutian Laser being based in the zone.[146]

  • Wuhan Optical Valley (Guanggu) Software Park

Wuhan Optical Valley (Guanggu) Software Park is located in Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone. Wuhan Optics Valley Software Park is jointly developed by East Lake High-Tech Development Zone and Dalian Software Park Co., Ltd.[147] The planned area is 0.67 square kilometers (0.26 square miles) with total floor area of 6,000,000 square meters (65,000,000 square feet). The zone is 8.5 km (5.28 mi) away from the 316 National Highway and is 46.7 km (29.02 mi) away from the Wuhan Tianhe Airport.

Biolake is an industrial base established in 2008 in the Optics Valley of China. Located in East Lake New Technology Development Zone of Wuhan, Biolake covers 15 km2 (5.8 sq mi), and has six parks including Bio-innovation Park, Bio-pharma Park, Bio-agriculture Park, Bio-manufacturing Park, Medical Device Park and Medical Health Park, to accommodate both research activities and living.[148][149][150][151][152]

Demographics edit

Historical population
YearPop.±%
19531,427,300—    
19824,101,000+187.3%
19906,901,911+68.3%
20008,312,700+20.4%
20109,785,388+17.7%
202012,326,500+26.0%
202213,648,900+10.7%
Population size may be affected by changes on administrative divisions. 2022 yearend est.[153] 1953,[154][155] 1982,[156] 1990,[157] 2000 [127] 2007[158] 2015[159]

Wuhan is the most populous city in Central China and among the most populous in China. In the Seventh Census of China in 2020, Wuhan was home to 12,326,500 inhabitants, a 25.97% increase by 2.5411 million compared to the last census in 2010. 2010-2020 is the fastest growing 10 years in history since the census was established, averaging 2.34% annually, and it was the first time that Wuhan's population reached 10 million.[160]

The encompassing metropolitan area was estimated by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to have, as of 2010, a population of 19 million.[161][162] As of November 2019, urban development status considering both spatial and socioeconomic processes has been examined using Night Time Lighting data and land cover data as proxies; it showed Wuhan's high concentration of socioeconomic activities compared to its urban spatial development.[163]

Religion edit

Religion in Wuhan (2017)[164]

  Chinese religion or not religious (including Taoists (0.9%)) (79.2%)
  Buddhism (14.7%)
  Protestantism (2.9%)
  Islam (1.6%)
  Catholicism (0.3%)
  Other (1.6%)

According to a survey published in 2017, 79.2% of the population of Wuhan are either irreligious or practice worship of gods and ancestors; among these 0.9% are Taoists. Among other religious doctrines, 14.7% of the population adheres to Buddhism, 2.9% to Protestantism, 0.3% to Catholicism and 1.6% to Islam, and 1.6% of the population adheres to unspecified other religions.[164]

Transportation edit

Railways edit

China Railway Wuhan Group manages the Wuhan Railway Hub. Wuhan Railway Hub is considered one of the four key railway hubs of China.[165] The city of Wuhan is served by three major railway stations: the Hankou railway station in Hankou, the Wuchang railway station in Wuchang, and the Wuhan railway station, located in a newly developed area east of the East Lake (Hongshan District). As the stations are many miles apart, it is important for passengers to be aware of the particular station(s) used by a particular train.

The (original) Hankou Station was the terminus for the Jinghan railway from Beijing, while the Wuchang Station was the terminus for the Yuehan railway to Guangzhou. Since the construction of the First Yangtze Bridge and the linking of the two lines into the Jingguang railway, both Hankou and Wuchang stations have been served by trains going to all directions, which contrasts with the situation in such cities as New York or Moscow, where different stations serve different directions.

With the opening of the Hefei-Wuhan high-speed railway on April 1, 2009,[166] Wuhan became served by high-speed trains with Hefei, Nanjing, and Shanghai; several trains a day now connect the city with Shanghai, getting there in under six hours. As of early 2010, most of these express trains leave from the Hankou railway station.

In 2006, construction began on the new Wuhan railway station with 11 platforms, located on the northeastern outskirts of the city. In December 2009, the station was opened, as China unveiled its second high-speed train with scheduled runs from Guangzhou to Wuhan. Billed as the fastest train in the world, it can reach a speed of 394 km/h (244.82 mph). The travel time between the two cities has been reduced from ten and a half hours to just three. The rail service has been extended north to Beijing.[167]

As of 2011, the new Wuhan railway station is primarily used by the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed trains, while most regular trains to other destinations continue to use the Hankou and Wuchang stations.

Construction work is carried out on several lines of the new Wuhan Metropolitan Area intercity railway, which will eventually connect Wuhan's three main rail terminals with several stations throughout the city's outer areas and farther suburbs, as well as with the nearby cities of Xianning, Huangshi, Huanggang, and Xiaogan. The first line of the system, the one to Xianning, opened for passenger operations at the end of 2013. The line to Xiaogen opened on December 1, 2016, and it was extended with the opening of the Wuhan–Shiyan high-speed railway to Shiyan on November 29, 2019.[168][169]

The main freight railway station and classification yard of the Wuhan metropolitan area is the extensive Wuhan North railway station, with 112 tracks and over 650 switches. It is located in Hengdian Subdistrict [zh] of Huangpi District, located 20 km (12 mi) north of the Wuhan Station and 23 km (14 mi) from Hankou Station.

Metro edit

Wuhan Metro is a rapid transit system serving the city of Wuhan. Owned and operated by Wuhan Metro Group Co., Ltd., the network now includes 11 lines, 282 stations, and 435 km (270 mi) of route length. Line 1, the first line in the system, opened on July 28, 2004, making Wuhan the seventh city in mainland China with a rapid transit system, after Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changchun, and Dalian.[170] Line 2 opened on December 28, 2012, and is the first underground metro line crossing the Yangtze River. Commuting across the Yangtze River and Han River has been the bottleneck of Wuhan traffic. However, the appearance of Wuhan Metro greatly relieved this problem. With 1.22 billion annual passengers in 2019, Wuhan Metro is the sixth-busiest rapid transit system in mainland China.[171] Wuhan Metro is a rapidly developing metro system. There are a number of lines or sections under construction. The government of Wuhan City promised the citizens that at least two lines or sections open every year.[172] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire network was out of service from January 23 to March 27, 2020.

Trams edit

 
A tram in University Science Park Station
 
Optics Valley Sky Rail

Trams were brought to the streets of Wuhan on July 28, 2017, with the first line (Auto-city T1 Line) opened that day.[173] The trams under construction or planning in Wuhan are:

  • Auto-city trams, with Lines T1, T2, T6, and T8 in the Wuhan Economic Development Area, in the far western reaches on Hanyang. T1 Line is operational as of 2017.
  • Optics Valley trams, two lines (T1 and T2) south and east of Guanggu Circle (Guanggu Guangchang) in southeastern Wuchang. The system opened on January 18, 2018.[174]
  • The Old Hankou Streetcar, a loop line around Hankou city.

Maritime transport edit

Wuhan is a major hub for maritime transport in central China. The Port of Wuhan provide services for the local population and shipping services.

Ferry edit

Located on the banks of the Yangtze River, Wuhan has a long history of ferry services. Modern ferry services were established in 1900 by steam boat. In 1937, a train ferry was established to transport train cars from Hankou to Wuchang.[175] There are numbered stops around Wuhan where people can get on and off the ferry and there is a tourist ferry in the night.

Currently, ferry services are provided by the Wuhan Ferry Company. In 2010, the company bought ten new ships to replace those that had been in service for 29 years.[176]

Airports edit

 
Terminal 3 of Wuhan Tianhe Airport

Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is one of the busiest airports in central China. The airport opened in April 1995 to replace the old Hankou Wangjiadun Airport and Nanhu Airport as the major airport of Wuhan.[177][178] It is located in Wuhan's suburban Huangpi District, 26 kilometers (16 mi) north of Wuhan city proper. The extension of Line 2 of Wuhan Metro to Tianhe Airport opened on December 28, 2016.[179] It has also been selected as China's fourth international hub airport after Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun. A second terminal was completed in March 2008, having been started in February 2005 with an investment of CNY 3.372 billion. International flights to neighboring Asian countries have also been enhanced, including direct flights to Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan. Terminal 3 has been available for service since early 2017.

Wuhan Hannan General Airport is an airport dedicated to general aviation, located in Hannan District of Wuhan. It is the largest airport in China that only handles general aviation.[180] On December 1, 2017, construction began on Wuhan Caidian General Airport, another airport dedicated to general aviation, which is located in Caidian District of Wuhan.[181]

Highways and expressways edit

Numerous major highways and expressways pass through Wuhan, including:

Bicycle-sharing system edit

As of May 2011, the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle bike-share systems in China were the largest in the world, with around 90,000 and 60,000 bicycles respectively.[182] In 2012 the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle programs in China are the largest in the world, with around 90,000 and 60,000 bicycles respectively. China has seen a rise in private "dockless" bike shares with fleets that dwarf systems in size outside China.[183] Initially, a number of traditional (third-generation) docked public bike systems operated by local municipal governments opened across China, with the largest ones being in Wuhan and Hangzhou. The first was introduced in Beijing in 2007. However, third-generation bike sharing is not considered successful for the majority cities in China. Bike sharing in Beijing virtually stopped and it also has encountered difficulties in Shanghai and Wuhan.[184]

Destinations edit

 
Replica instruments of ancient originals are played at the Hubei Provincial Museum.
A replica set of bronze concert bells is in the background and a set of stone chimes is to the right.
 
Hubei Provincial Museum
  • The Yellow Crane Tower (Huanghelou) is presumed to have been first built in approximately 220 AD. The tower has been destroyed and reconstructed numerous times, and was burned last according to some sources in 1884. The tower underwent complete reconstruction in 1981. The reconstruction utilized modern materials and added an elevator while maintaining the traditional design in the tower's outward appearance.
  • Wuchang has the largest and second largest lakes within a city in China, the East Lake and Tangxun Lake, as well as the South Lake. East Lake in Wuhan is six times the size of the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The total area is more than 80 km2 (31 sq mi) of which the lake is covering an area of 33 km2 (13 sq mi). In the springtime, the shores of East Lake become a garden of flowers with the Mei blossoms as the king and the Cherry Blossom as the queen among the species at East Lake Cherry Blossom Park. Another famous flower is the lotus. The lake has a long history and especially the Chu Kingdom is well represented around East Lake. Moreover, in the Moshan Botanic Garden there are many types of plum blossoms, as well as lotus flowers.
 
Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, made in 433 BC, now on display at the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan
  • The Hubei Provincial Museum: With over 200,000 valued artifacts, this is one of the leading museums in China. Especially the artefacts from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (Zeng Hou Yi), who lived in the 5th century BC, is a world unique treasure. The bell chime of Marquis Yi of Zeng is a bronze instrument performed 2430 years ago in ancient China (Warring States Period), and was discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Suizhou, Hubei in 1978. The whole chime weighs 5 tons, can perfectly play sound which was heard 2430 years ago, and was considered "The Eighth Wonder of the World".
  • The Wuhan Museum has a collection of more than 100,000 artifacts, including ceramic, bronze ware, paintings and calligraphy, jade, wood carving, enamel ware, seals and so on. As a modern comprehensive museum, Wuhan Museum has the function in cultural relic collection, academic reach, publicity and education, cultural exchange, and recreation and entertainment.

[185]

  • Happy Valley Wuhan is a theme park in Hongshan District. Opened on April 29, 2012, it is the fifth installation of the Happy Valley theme park chain.[186]
  • The Rock and Bonsai Museum includes a mounted platybelodon skeleton, many unique stones, a quartz crystal the size of an automobile, and an outdoor garden with miniature trees in the penjing ("Chinese Bonsai") style.
  • Jiqing Street (吉庆街) holds many roadside restaurants and street performers during the evening and is the site of a Live Show with stories of events on this street by contemporary writer Chi Li.
  • The Lute Platform in Hanyang was where the legendary musician Yu Boya is said to have played. This is the birthplace of the renowned legend of seeking a soul mate through "high mountains and flowing water". According to the story behind the Chinese word '知音' (zhīyīn; 'understanding music'), Yu Boya played for the last time over the grave of his friend Zhong Ziqi, then smashed his lute because the only person able to appreciate his music was dead.[187]
  • Mao's Villa (毛澤東別墅), Mao Zedong's villa between 1960 and 1974; includes garden, living quarters, conference room, bomb shelter and swimming pool.[188][189]
  • Some luxury riverboat tours begin here after a flight from Beijing or Shanghai, with several days of flatland cruising and then climbing through the Three Gorges with passage upstream past the Gezhouba and Three Gorges dams to the city of Chongqing. With the completion of the dam, a number of cruises now start from the upstream side and continue west, with tourists traveling by motorcoach from Wuhan.
  • Wuying Pagoda or the "Shadowless Pagoda" is the oldest standing architectural feature in Wuhan, dating from the closing days of the Southern Song dynasty.
  • Chu River and Han Street, a shopping district located in Wuchang with many tourist attractions, including Han Show theater, Madame Tussauds wax museum, and Movie Culture Park, etc. This project was initiated as a water connecting channel between East Lake and Shahu Lake.
  • Wuhan Zoo in Hanyang.[190]
  • The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market is a live animal and seafood market in the Jianghan District. The market is located in the newer part of the city near shops and apartment blocks and is close to Hankou railway station. The market has been identified as a possible point of origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.[191]
  • The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is located in the Wuchan District. It is, "the key laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for newly emerging and fulminating infectious disease pathogen and biosecurity."[192]

The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.[193]

 
View from within the Wuhan Stones Park (武汉奇石园) along Lumo Road.

Education edit

Schools and universities edit

 
The old library of Wuhan University

As of 2023, there are 82 higher educational institutions in Wuhan, making it a leading educational hub in the Central China region.[194] Prominent institutions include Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan University. Three state-level development zones and many enterprise incubators are also significant in Wuhan's education and business development. Wuhan ranks third in China in overall strength of science and technology.[195]

As of the end of 2013, in Wuhan there were 1,024 kindergartens with 224,300 children, 590 primary schools with 424,000 students, 369 general high schools with 314,000 students, 105 secondary vocational and technical schools with 98,600 students, and 80 colleges and universities with 966,400 undergraduates and junior college students and 107,400 postgraduate students.[196] There are several international schools in Wuhan.

Wuhan is also a major city in the world by scientific research outputs and it ranks 10th globally, 6th in the Asia-Pacific and 5th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou).[29]

 
Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), located in the Optics Valley of China near East Lake, is a Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University.[197] HUST manages Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto-electronics (WNLO), which is one of the five national laboratories in China. HUST is also one of four Chinese universities eligible to run the national laboratory and the national major science and technology infrastructure. Founded in 1953 as Huazhong Institute of Technology, it combined with three other universities (including former Tongji Medical University founded in 1907) in 2000 to form the new HUST, and has 42 schools and departments covering 12 comprehensive disciplines.[198][199] HUST has 12 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Sciences and 17 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Engineering.[200] As of 2022, the U.S. News' 2023 U.S. News & World Report ranked HUST 109th in the world, 15th in Asia and 6th in China,[201] while the Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked the university 96th in the world, 14th in Asia and 8th in China.[202] More than 2,000 international students from 120 countries pursue degrees at HUST.[203]

Wuhan University is another Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University,[197] which was ranked 101th in the world, 15th in Asia and 9th in China by the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities[204] and 150th in the world by the U.S. News & World Report,[205] whiile it was ranked the 194th by the 2024 QS World University Rankings[206] and 164th by the 2024 Times Higher Education;[207] established in 1893, the old Wuhan University absorbed three other schools (two of them being its spin-offs since the 1950s) in 2000 to become a university with 36 schools in 6 faculties. Since the 1950s it has received international students from more than 109 countries.[208]

Scientific research edit

Wuhan contains three national development zones and four scientific and technological development parks, as well as numerous enterprise incubators, over 350 research institutes, 1470 high-tech enterprises, and over 400,000 experts and technicians.

Founded in 1958, the Wuhan Branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the twelve national branches of CAS. It is composed of 9 independent organizations, including the headquarters at Xiaohongshan, Wuchang. It has had a staff of 3,900, among which 8 are CAS fellows, and one is a Chinese Academy of Engineering fellow. As of 2013, the achievements gained by WHB had won 23 National Awards and 778 Provincial Awards.[209] Wuhan Research Institute of Post and Telecommunications (now known as FiberHome Technologies Group) is the national center for optical communication research in China, and is where the first optical fiber in the country was produced.[210] The Wuhan Institute of Virology is also operated by the CAS.

Wuhan University of Technology is another major national university with three main campuses located in the Wuchang District. Founded in the year 2000, it was merged from three major universities, Wuhan University of Technology (established in 1948), Wuhan Transportation University (established in 1946) and Wuhan Automotive Polytechnic University (established in 1958). Wuhan University of Technology, together with China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and Central China Normal University (or Huazhong Normal University), are the leading Chinese universities accredited by the Ministry of Education under the "State Project 211" for Chinese higher education institutions. Other major research universities have its seat in the city, including Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Hubei University, Hubei University of Technology, and South Central University for Nationalities.[211][212]

Media edit

 
Tortoise Mountain TV Tower

The headquarters of Hubei Television is located in Wuchang District. Tortoise Mountain TV Tower is China's first self-developed TV tower, opened in 1986. The modern newspapers in Wuhan can be dated back to 1866, when Hankow Times, a newspaper in English, was founded. Before 1949, more than 50 newspapers and magazines were published by foreigners in Wuhan. Chao-wen Hsin-pao, founded by Ai Xiaomei in 1873, was the first Chinese newspaper to appear in Hankou (one of the cities that was merged into Wuhan). During the Northern Expedition era (1926–1928), journalism in Wuhan came to a climax; more than 120 newspapers and periodicals, including national newspapers such as Central Daily News and Republican Daily News, were founded or published during this time.[213] Chutian Metropolis Daily and Wuhan Evening News are two major local commercial tabloid newspapers. Both of them have entered the list of 100 most widely circulated newspapers of the world.[citation needed]

Culture edit

The plum blossom is the city's emblem, chosen partly because of the long history of local plum cultivation and use, and partly to recognize the plum's current economic significance in terms of cultivation and research. Local wild plums were used medicinally during the Qin and Han dynasties. Cultivation of the fruit began during the Song dynasty. Some traditional new year customs revolve around the planting of plums.

Language edit

Wuhan natives speak a variety of Southwestern Mandarin Chinese referred to as Wuhan dialect that differs slightly between the districts of Wuhan, including Wuchang dialect in Wuchang District, Hankou dialect in the Hankou districts, Hanyang dialect in Hanyang District, and Qingshan dialect in Qingshan District.

Cuisine edit

 
Hot Dry Noodles

Hubei cuisine is one of China's ten major styles of cooking. With a history of more than 2,000 years, Hubei cuisine, originating in ancient Chu cuisine, has developed a number of distinctive dishes, such as steamed blunt-snout bream in clear soup, preserved ham with flowering Chinese cabbage, and others. On the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, many in Wuhan eat dìcài zhǔ jīdàn (地菜煮鸡蛋), an egg dish which is supposed to prevent illness in the coming year.[214]

"No need to be particular about the recipes; all foods have their own uses. Rice wine and tangyuan are excellent midnight snacks, while fat bream and flowering Chinese cabbages are great delicacies."[215] This attitude expressed in Hankou Zhuzhici reflects indirectly the eating habits and a wide variety of distinctive snacks with a long history in Wuhan, such as Qingshuizong (a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) in the Period of the Warring States, Chunbinbian in Northern and Southern dynasties, mung bean jelly in the Sui dynasty, youguo (a deep-fried twisted dough stick) in the Song and Yuan dynasties, rice wine and mianwo in the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as three-delicacy stuffed skin of bean milk,[clarification needed] tangbao (steamed dumpling filled with minced meat and gravy) and hot braised noodles (reganmian) in modern times.

Guozao (過早) is a popular way to say 'having breakfast' in Wuhan, and a part of the city's culture. As a hub for land transport in China, Wuhan has gathered and mixed together various habits and customs from neighboring cities and provinces in all directions, which gives rise to a concentration of diverse cuisines from different places. The most famous place to guozao (have breakfast) is Hubu Street (戶部巷), a 150-meter-long street in the neighborhood of Simenkou (司门口). Along its short length one can find nearly all the traditional foods of Wuhan, such as:

 
Mianwo, a donut-shaped snack from Wuhan
  • Hot and dry noodles, re-gan mian (热干面), consists of long freshly boiled noodles mixed with sesame paste. It is considered to be the most typical local food for breakfast.
  • Duck's neck or Ya Bozi (鸭脖子) is a local version of this popular Chinese dish, made of duck necks and spices.
  • Bean skin or doupi (豆皮) is a local dish with a filling of egg, rice, beef, mushrooms and beans cooked between two large round soybean skins and cut into pieces, structurally like a stuffed pizza without enclosing edges.
  • Soup dumpling or xiaolongtangbao (小笼汤包) is a kind of dumpling with thin skin made of flour, steamed with very juicy meat inside, hence the name: tang (soup) bao (bun) – every time one takes a bite from it the "soup" inside is liable to spill out.
  • A salty doughnut or mianwo (麪窩) is a kind of savory donut with a salty taste. It is much thinner than a common donut and is a typical Wuhan local food.
  • Shaomai wrapped in oil cake (油饼包烧麦): 1 oil cake is filled with 4 pieces of heavy oil siomai, and the heavy oil is required to put diced meat, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and black pepper in it.
  • Paste Soup Noodles (糊汤粉): It is a snack variety that uses round rice noodles as the main ingredient, fish paste soup, small shrimp, and chopped green onion as accessories.

Opera edit

Han opera, which is the local opera of Wuhan area, was one of China's oldest and most popular operas. During the late Qing dynasty, Han opera, blended with Hui opera, gave birth to Peking opera, the most popular opera in modern China. Thus Han opera has been called the "mother of Peking opera."[216][217]

Sports edit

 
Wuhan Sports Center

Wuhan had a professional football team, Wuhan, that plays in the China League One. Xinhua Road Sport Center, the team's home stadium, with a capacity of 32,137, is located in the heart of the city next to Zhongshan Park. For the 2013 season, Wuhan Zall was promoted to the top-tier league of Chinese football, Chinese Super League, and relocated its home to Wuhan Sports Center Stadium, a modern stadium with 54,357 seats located in the suburbs of the city. However, the team did not play well in the ensuing season and was demoted back to China League One as the 2013 season ended. For financial and transportation reasons, the team moved back to Xinhua Road Sport Center in 2014. In January 2023, the team folded. Wuhan also has the Wuhan Three Towns in the Chinese Super League, who won the title during the 2022 season for the first time upon promotion from China League One.

The Wuhan Gators are a professional arena football team based in Wuhan. They are members of the China Arena Football League (CAFL).[218]

The 13,000-seat Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium held the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship and was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.[219] The 7th Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan from Oct 18 to 27, 2019.[220][221]

The city has been the venue for the women's tennis tournament, the Wuhan Open, one of the WTA's Premier 5 tournaments, since 2014.

Architecture edit

Bridges edit

Wuhan has eleven bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also called the First Bridge, was built over the Yangtze in 1957, carrying a railroad directly across the river between hills known as Snake Hill and Turtle Hill. Before this bridge was built it could take up to an entire day to barge railcars across. Including its approaches, it is 5,511 feet (1,680 m) long, and it accommodates both a double-track railway on a lower deck and a four-lane roadway above. It was built with the assistance of advisers from the Soviet Union.

The Second Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge built of prestressed concrete, has a central span of 400 meters (1,300 feet); it is 4,678 meters (15,348 feet) in length (including 1,877 meters (6,158 feet) of the main bridge) and 26.5 to 33.5 meters (86.9 to 109.9 feet) in width. Its main bridgeheads are 90 meters (300 feet) high each, pulling 392 thick slanting cables together in the shape of double fans so that the central span of the bridge is well poised on the piers and the bridge's stability and vibration resistance are ensured. With six lanes on the deck, the bridge is designed to handle the daily passage of 50,000 motor vehicles. The bridge was completed in 1995.

 
Second bridge

The Third Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also called Baishazhou Bridge, was completed in September 2000. Located 8.6 kilometers (5.3 miles) southwest of the First Bridge, construction of Baishazhou Bridge started in 1997. With an investment of over 1.4 billion yuan (about US$170,000,000), the bridge, which is 3,586 meters (11,765 feet) long and 26.5 meters (86.9 feet) wide, has six lanes and has a capacity of 50,000 vehicles a day. The bridge is expected to serve as a major passage for the future Wuhan Ring Road, greatly easing the city's traffic and aiding local economic development.

The Yangluo Bridge carries Wuhan's Ring Road across the Yangtze in the city's eastern suburbs (connecting the Hongshan District with the Xinzhou District). It was opened on December 26, 2007.

The Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the northeastern part of the city, downstream of the Second bridge. It is named after Tianxing Island (Tianxingzhou), above which it crosses the river. Built at a cost of 11 billion yuan, the 4,657-meter cable suspension bridge was opened on December 26, 2009,[222] in time for the opening of the Wuhan railway station. It is a combined road and rail bridge, and carries the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway across the river.

Skyscrapers edit

 
Wuhan Greenland Center, the tallest building in Wuhan since 2023

The Yellow Crane Tower, historically one of the tallest buildings in Wuhan, is considered one of the Four Great Towers of China and was destroyed twelve times, both by warfare and by fire. The tower is classified as an AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration.[223] At 475.6 meters (1,560 ft) in height, the Wuhan Greenland Center is the tallest skyscraper in Wuhan and in Central China, as well as the eighth tallest building in China.[224]

The Wuhan Center, the second tallest skyscraper in Wuhan, was the tallest building in the city when it was completed in 2019. It retained the title until Wuhan Greenland Center surpassed it in 2023.[225] Riverview Plaza is a 376 meters (1,234 ft) tall skyscraper located in Wuhan. It was completed in 2021 and is currently the third tallest building in the city. The Phoenix Towers are proposed supertall skyscrapers planned for construction in Wuhan. At 1 kilometer (3,300 ft) high, the towers would be among the tallest structures in the world when completed.[226]

Notable Wuhanese edit

 
Li Na, a former professional tennis player and two-time Grand Slam champion, serving at Wimbledon 2008, 1st round against Anastasia Rodionova
 
President Li Yuanhong

Politics edit

Business edit

Science edit

  • Chang-Lin Tien – seventh Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1990–1997) and a major founder of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Tien is the first Asian to head a top university in the United States.
  • E Dongchen – "father of polar surveying and mapping" in China
  • Long Lehao – Aerospace engineer and the chief designer of Long March expendable launch system rockets
  • Weiping Zou – Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Pathology, Immunology, Biology, and Surgery at the University of Michigan, American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Immunology (CIMM) Chairperson 2018–2019, Abstract Programming Chair for the American Association of Immunologists

Sports edit

  • Deng Zhuoxiang – professional football player, scored many goals for Chinese national team in important games including 3:0 South Korea and 1:0 France in 2010.
  • Fu Mingxia – female diver, four-time Olympic Gold Medalist (one in Barcelona 1992, two in Atlanta 1996, one in Sydney 2000), the only diver that has won gold medals at three Olympics as well as one of the very few divers in the world who is able to win world championships in both platform diving and springboard diving.
  • Gao Ling – professional badminton player, two-time Olympic gold medalist (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004).
  • Hao Junmin – professional football player, played for Schalke 04 in the German League.
  • Hu Jia – Chinese diver who won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men's 10 meter platform.
  • Mei Fang – Chinese footballer playing for Guangzhou Evergrande in the Chinese Super League.
  • Li Na – former tennis player, champion of the French Open 2011 and Australian Open 2014.
  • Li Ting – tennis player, Olympic gold medalist (in women's doubles, Athens 2004).
  • Liang Patti – Chinese American acrobat.
  • Qiao Hong – female table tennis player, two-time Olympic gold medalist (in women's doubles, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996).
  • Rong Hao – professional football player, with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles.
  • Tang Jieli – AIBA Women's Boxing World Champion.[228]
  • Xiao Hailiang – Chinese diver, Olympic gold medalist (in 3-meter (9.8-foot) springboard synchronized diving, Sydney 2000).
  • Zeng Cheng – professional football player, with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles.
  • Zhou Jihong – female diver, Olympic gold medalist (Los Angeles 1984), the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in diving.
  • Tian Tao – Olympic weightlifter
  • Lü Xiaojun – Olympic weightlifter

Arts edit

Other fields edit

  • Saint Francis Regis Clet was martyred here
  • Hua Mulan – Ancient Chinese heroine whose story has been passed through ages in China and has been presented in a great number of books and motion pictures, including the Disney animated feature Mulan (1998).
  • Samuel David Hawkins - American soldier in the Korean War who was captured by the North, subsequently defected to China at the time of the Korean Armistice Agreement. He worked as a mechanic in Wuhan until 1957.
  • Wu Shuqing – female revolutionary and militia leader during the Xinhai Revolution
  • Xiong Bingkun [zh] (熊秉坤) – the soldier who started and led the Wuhan Uprising in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which gave birth to the Republic of China, Asia's first republic country.
  • Zhong Ziqi – The best friend of Yu Boya, an ancient Chinese musician whose musical composition "Flowing Water" was included on the Voyager Golden Record
  • Ai Jingjing – Chinese novelist.

Sister cities edit

Wuhan is twinned with:[231]

class=notpageimage|
Sister cities of Wuhan
1. Manchester 2. Swansea 3. Essonne 4. Bordeaux 5. Duisburg 6. Sankt Pölten 7. Győr
City Country Since
  Ōita   Japan September 7, 1979
  Pittsburgh   United States September 8, 1982
  Duisburg   Germany October 8, 1982
  Manchester   United Kingdom September 16, 1986[232]
  Galați   Romania August 12, 1987
  Kyiv   Ukraine October 19, 1990
Khartoum   Sudan September 27, 1995
  Győr   Hungary October 19, 1995
  Bordeaux[233]   France June 18, 1998
  Cheongju   South Korea October 29, 2000
  Sankt Pölten   Austria December 20, 2005
  Christchurch[234]   New Zealand April 4, 2006
Markham   Canada September 12, 2006
  Kópavogur   Iceland April 25, 2008
  Ashdod[235]   Israel November 8, 2011
  Essonne (not a city but a department)[236]   France December 21, 2012
İzmir   Turkey June 6, 2013
  Tijuana[237]   Mexico July 12, 2013[238]
  Saratov[239]   Russia August 7, 2015
  Concepción[240]   Chile April 7, 2016
  Bishkek   Kyrgyzstan November 15, 2016
Chalcis   Greece May 11, 2017
  Izhevsk   Russia June 16, 2017
Swansea[241]   Wales January 31, 2018
Entebbe   Uganda April 13, 2018
  Bangkok[242]   Thailand November 16, 2018

And Wuhan has friendly exchange relationships with:[243]

City Country Since
  Kobe   Japan February 16, 1998
  Hirosaki   Japan October 17, 2003
St. Louis   United States September 27, 2004
  Atlanta   United States September 9, 2006
Daejeon   South Korea November 1, 2006
Gwangju   South Korea September 6, 2007
Kolkata   India July 24, 2008
Suwon   South Korea December 5, 2008
Taebaek   South Korea December 5, 2008
  Columbus   United States October 30, 2009
  Bremen   Germany November 6, 2009
  Port Louis   Mauritius November 10, 2009
Cebu City   Philippines August 19, 2011
  Yogyakarta   Indonesia November 12, 2011
  Perm   Russia September 10, 2012
  Chicago   United States September 20, 2012
  Košice   Slovakia November 6, 2012
  Naples   Italy September 18, 2012
  Moselle   France July 16, 2013
  San Francisco   United States November 21, 2013
Siem Reap Province   Cambodia November 21, 2013
Biratnagar     Nepal November 21, 2013
  Bangkok   Thailand November 21, 2013
  Częstochowa   Poland March 14, 2014
  Oliveira de Azeméis   Portugal April 11, 2014
  Sydney   Australia May 30, 2014
  Durban   South Africa June 2014
  Burlingame   United States June 23, 2014
  Menlo Park   United States June 23, 2014
  Cupertino   United States June 23, 2014
  East Palo Alto   United States June 23, 2014
Hayward   United States June 23, 2014
  Millbrae   United States June 23, 2014
Moraga   United States June 23, 2014
  Morgan Hill   United States June 23, 2014
Mountain View   United States June 23, 2014
  Oakley   United States June 23, 2014
Union City   United States June 23, 2014
Betong   Thailand June 25, 2014
  Salo   Finland August 25, 2014
  Gävle   Sweden August 27, 2014
Patan     Nepal October 20, 2014
  Pattaya   Thailand October 24, 2014
  Berane   Montenegro October 24, 2014
  Córdoba   Argentina October 24, 2014
  Liège   Belgium October 29, 2014
  Lille   France November 3, 2014
  Holbæk   Denmark November 24, 2014
  Heraklion   Greece December 11, 2014
Cape Town   South Africa December 9, 2014
  São Luís   Brazil April 29, 2015
  Varaždin   Croatia May 7, 2015
  Kota Kinabalu   Malaysia May 20, 2015
  Erdőkertes,   Pest Megye   Hungary July 4, 2015
Gold Coast   Australia September 29, 2015
  Le Mans   France November 1, 2015
  Southern Province   Sri Lanka December 3, 2015
Galle   Sri Lanka December 5, 2015
Mungyeong   South Korea December 22, 2015
Daegu   South Korea March 25, 2016
Tacoma   United States April 5, 2016
  Lima   Peru April 8, 2016
Tabriz   Iran May 28, 2016
Marrakesh   Morocco June 3, 2016
  Phnom Penh   Cambodia July 11, 2016
  Dublin   Ireland September 5, 2016
  Houston   United States September 10, 2016
Jinja   Uganda September 20, 2016
  Pucallpa   Peru September 20, 2016
Maribor   Slovenia September 23, 2016
Montego Bay   Jamaica September 28, 2016
Victoria   Seychelles October 17, 2016
  Kemi   Finland November 25, 2016
San Nicolás de los Arroyos   Argentina December 16, 2016
  Foz do Iguaçu   Brazil March 9, 2017
  Dunkirk   France March 20, 2017
  Jihlava   Czech Republic May 10, 2017
  Brest   Belarus August 29, 2017
  Zhytomyr   Ukraine November 14, 2017
  Marseille   France November 20, 2017
  Herstal   Belgium May 21, 2018
Fergana   Uzbekistan October 14, 2018

Former Twinnings edit

The city of Arnhem has unilaterally ended its twinning with Wuhan on July 21, 2021, citing concerns about the Uyghur genocide.[244]

City Country From Until
  Arnhem   Netherlands September 6, 1999 July 21, 2021

Nature and wildlife edit

In Chinese mythology, the Baiji ("Yangtze River dolphin") has many origin stories. In one legend, the Baiji was the daughter of a general who was deported from the city of Wuhan during a war. During his duty, the daughter ran away. Later, the general met a woman who told him how her father was a general, and when he realized that she was his daughter, he threw himself into the river out of shame. The daughter ran after him and also fell into the river. Before they were drowned, the daughter was transformed into a dolphin, and the general a porpoise.[245]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b 图文:"黄金十字架"写就第一笔. Sina. March 30, 2009. from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 21, 2018. 武汉历史上就是"九省通衢",在中央促进中部崛起战略中被定位为"全国性综合交通运输枢纽"。
  2. ^ 九省通衢. The government of Wuhan. Archived from the original on November 27, 2012. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  3. ^ a b . Time. June 13, 1938. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  4. ^ a b c Jacob, Mark (May 13, 2012). "Chicago is all over the place". Chicago Tribune. from the original on May 11, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  5. ^ a b 水野幸吉 (Mizuno Kokichi) (2014). 中国中部事情:汉口 [Central China: Hankou]. Wuhan Press. p. 3. ISBN 9787543084612.
  6. ^ 全国各地级市人口排名-红黑人口库.
  7. ^ a b c d 武汉市历史沿革 (in Simplified Chinese). www.XZQH.org. August 6, 2014. from the original on February 10, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  8. ^ a b c 行政建置 (in Simplified Chinese). Wuhan Municipal People's Government. January 8, 2018. from the original on October 17, 2018. Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  9. ^ a b (PDF). Wuhan Statistics Bureau. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 5, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2011.p. 15
  10. ^ Cox, W (2018). Demographia World Urban Areas (PDF) (14th Annual ed.). St. Louis: Demographia. p. 22. (PDF) from the original on May 3, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  11. ^ 超1.7万亿元,武汉2021年GDP同比增长12.2%-荆楚网-湖北日报网. News.cnhubei.com. January 24, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
  12. ^ (PDF) (in Chinese). United Nations Development Programme China. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 November 2013. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  13. ^ (PDF). Harvard College. 2003. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 6, 2016. Retrieved January 25, 2018. 1984 In the spring, Metasequoia was chosen as the 'City Tree' of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei.
  14. ^ . Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021.
  15. ^ "Illuminating China's Provinces, Municipalities and Autonomous Regions: Hubei". China.org.cn. PRC Central Government. from the original on June 19, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
  16. ^ a b . The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
  17. ^ Zhao Manfeng (赵满丰). 国家中心城市 [National central cities]. usa.chinadaily.com.cn. from the original on May 20, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
  18. ^ a b MacKinnon, Stephen R. (2002). Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900–1950. University of Hawaii Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0824825188.
  19. ^ . Archived from the original on May 12, 2013. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
  20. ^ MacKinnon, Stephen R. (2008). Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. University of California Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-0520254459.
  21. ^ a b "The Coronavirus: What Scientists Have Learned So Far".
wuhan, also, ɑː, simplified, chinese, 武汉, traditional, chinese, 武漢, pinyin, wǔhàn, capital, hubei, province, people, republic, china, with, population, over, eleven, million, most, populous, city, hubei, ninth, most, populous, city, china, also, nine, national. Wuhan w uː ˈ h ae n US also w uː ˈ h ɑː n ˈ w uː 14 simplified Chinese 武汉 traditional Chinese 武漢 pinyin Wǔhan u xa n is the capital of Hubei Province in the People s Republic of China 15 With a population of over eleven million it is the most populous city in Hubei and the ninth most populous city in China 16 It is also one of the nine national central cities 17 Wuhan 武汉市Clockwise from top Skyline of Wuhan from the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge Tortoise Mountain TV Tower causeway at East Lake Guiyuan Temple Yellow Crane TowerNicknames 九省通衢 1 2 China s Thoroughfare The Chicago of China 3 4 5 江城 River City Motto s 武汉 每天不一样 Wuhan Different Every Day Location of Wuhan City jurisdiction in HubeiWuhanLocation of the city center in HubeiShow map of HubeiWuhanWuhan Eastern China Show map of Eastern ChinaWuhanWuhan China Show map of ChinaCoordinates Wuhan municipal government 30 35 36 N 114 18 17 E 30 5934 N 114 3046 E 30 5934 114 3046CountryChinaProvinceHubeiSettled1500 BCFirst unifiedJanuary 1 1927 7 Hancheng walls built223 BCMunicipal seatJiang an DistrictDivisions 7 8 County levelTownship level13 districts156 subdistricts 1 towns 3 townshipsGovernment TypePrefecture level and sub provincial city BodyWuhan Municipal People s Congress CCP SecretaryGuo Yuanqiang Congress ChairmanHu Lishan MayorCheng Yongwen CPPCC ChairmanYang ZhiArea 9 City8 494 41 km2 3 279 71 sq mi Urban 2018 10 1 528 km2 590 sq mi Population 2020 City12 326 500 6 DemonymWuhaneseLanguages LanguagesWuhan dialect Standard ChineseMajor ethnic groups Major ethnic groupsHanTime zoneUTC 08 00 China Standard Postal code430000 430400Area code0027ISO 3166 codeCN HB 01GDP2021 TotalCNY 1 772 trillionUS 274 68 billion 8th 11 Per capitaCNY 143 729US 22 284 nominal 11th Growth12 2 2021 License plate prefixes鄂A鄂O police and authorities HDI 2015 0 839 12 9th very highCity treeMetasequoia 13 City flowerPlum blossomWebsite武汉政府门户网站 Wuhan Government Web Portal in Chinese English Wuhan in English Wuhan Wuhan in Simplified top and Traditional bottom Chinese charactersSimplified Chinese武汉Traditional Chinese武漢Literal meaning The combined cities of Wu chang and Han kou TranscriptionsStandard MandarinHanyu PinyinWǔhanBopomofoㄨˇ ㄏㄢˋGwoyeu RomatzyhWuuhannWade GilesWu3 han4IPA u xa n WuSuzhouneseVu hǒeYue CantoneseYale RomanizationMouh honJyutpingMou5 hon3IPA mou hɔːn Southern MinHokkien POJBu hanWuhan historically served as a busy city port for commerce and trading with some crucial influences on Chinese history The name Wuhan came from the city s historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang Hankou and Hanyang which are collectively known as the Three Towns of Wuhan 武汉三镇 Wuhan lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain at the confluence of the Yangtze river and its largest tributary the Han River and is known as Nine Provinces Thoroughfare 九省通衢 1 Wuhan was the site of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising against the Qing Dynasty which ended 2 000 years of dynastic rule Wuhan was briefly the capital of China in 1927 under the left wing of the Kuomintang KMT government 18 and later served as the wartime capital of China for ten months in 1937 during WWII 19 20 On December 31 2019 SARS CoV 2 a novel coronavirus that later caused the COVID 19 pandemic was first discovered in Wuhan 21 22 and the city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic in January 2020 23 Wuhan is considered the political economic financial commercial cultural and educational center of Central China 16 It is a major transportation hub with dozens of railways roads and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities 24 Because of its key role in domestic transportation Wuhan is sometimes referred to as the Chicago of China by foreign sources 3 4 5 The Golden Waterway of the Yangtze River and the Han River traverse the urban area and divide Wuhan into the three districts of Wuchang Hankou and Hanyang The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the city The Three Gorges Dam the world s largest power station in terms of installed capacity is located nearby Historically Wuhan has suffered risks of flooding 25 prompting the government to alleviate the situation by introducing ecologically friendly absorption mechanisms 26 While Wuhan has been a traditional manufacturing hub for decades it is also one of the areas promoting modern industrial changes in China Wuhan has three national development zones four scientific and technological development parks over 350 research institutes 1 656 high tech enterprises numerous enterprise incubators and investments from 230 Fortune Global 500 firms 27 It produced GDP nominal of US 274 billion in 2021 The Dongfeng Motor Corporation an automobile manufacturer is headquartered in Wuhan The city is home to multiple notable institutes of higher education including Wuhan University 28 and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan is a major city in the world by scientific research outputs and it ranks 10th globally 6th in the Asia Pacific and 5th in China after Beijing Shanghai Nanjing and Guangzhou 29 In 2017 Wuhan was designated as a Creative City by UNESCO in the field of design 30 Wuhan is classified as a Beta global second tier city together with seven other cities in China including Changsha Dalian Jinan Shenyang Xiamen Xi an and Zhengzhou by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network 31 Wuhan is also one of the world s top 100 financial centers according to the Global Financial Centres Index 32 Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2 1 Antiquity era 2 2 Imperial China 2 3 Wuchang Uprising 2 4 Republic of China 2 5 People s Republic 3 Geography 3 1 Overview 3 2 Climate 4 Government and politics 4 1 Administrative divisions 4 2 Diplomatic missions 5 Economy 5 1 Industrial zones 6 Demographics 6 1 Religion 7 Transportation 7 1 Railways 7 2 Metro 7 3 Trams 7 4 Maritime transport 7 5 Ferry 7 6 Airports 7 7 Highways and expressways 7 8 Bicycle sharing system 8 Destinations 9 Education 9 1 Schools and universities 9 2 Scientific research 10 Media 11 Culture 11 1 Language 11 2 Cuisine 11 3 Opera 11 4 Sports 12 Architecture 12 1 Bridges 12 2 Skyscrapers 13 Notable Wuhanese 13 1 Politics 13 2 Business 13 3 Science 13 4 Sports 13 5 Arts 13 6 Other fields 14 Sister cities 14 1 Former Twinnings 15 Nature and wildlife 16 See also 17 References 18 Sources 19 Further reading 20 External linksEtymology editThe name Wuhan comes from the two major cities on the banks of the Yangtze River that make up the Wuhan metropolis Wu refers to the city of Wuchang Chinese 武昌 which lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze while Han refers to the city of Hankou Chinese 汉口 which lies on the northern bank of the Yangtze Hankou means Mouth of the Han from its position at the confluence of the Han with the Yangtze River In 1926 the Northern Expedition reached the Wuhan area and it was decided to merge Hankou Wuchang and Hanyang into one city in order to make a new capital for Nationalist China On January 1 1927 33 the resulting city was proclaimed as 武漢 the traditional Chinese characters for Wuhan which was later simplified as 武汉 also Wuhan 34 35 36 History editMain article History of Wuhan Antiquity era edit nbsp Panlongcheng located in the southernmost area of the Erligang cultureThe Wuhan area has been settled for 3 500 years Panlongcheng an archaeological site primarily associated with the Erligang culture c 1510 c 1460 BC being sparsely populated during the earlier Erlitou period is located in modern day Huangpi District of Wuhan During the Western Zhou the State of E which gives its name to the single character abbreviation for Hubei province controlled the present day Wuchang area south of the Yangtze River After the conquest of the E state in 863 BC the present day Wuhan area was controlled by the State of Chu for the rest of the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou periods After the State of Huang was conquered by State of Chu in the summer of 648 BC 37 the people of Huang were moved into the area in and around present day Wuhan Local geographical terms including the name of Wuhan s Huangpi District were named after the State of Huang citation needed Chu was in turn conquered by Qin in 223 BC Imperial China edit nbsp Yellow Crane TowerDuring the Han dynasty Hanyang became a fairly busy port The Battle of Xiakou in AD 203 and Battle of Jiangxia five years later were fought in the region over control of Jiangxia Commandery territories of which included much of present day eastern Hubei In the winter of 208 9 one of the most famous battles in Chinese history and a central event in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms the Battle of Red Cliffs took place near the Yangtze River with the cliffs near Wuhan identified as one of the potential locations 38 Around that time walls were built to protect Hanyang AD 206 and Wuchang AD 223 The latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan In AD 223 the Yellow Crane Tower one of the Four Great Towers of China was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River by order of Sun Quan leader of the Eastern Wu The tower become a sacred site of Taoism 39 Due to tensions between the Eastern Wu and Cao Wei kingdoms in the autumn of 228 a Cao Rui grandson of Cao Cao and the second emperor of the state of Cao Wei ordered the general Man Chong to lead troops to Xiakou 夏口 in present day Wuhan 41 42 In 279 Wang Jun and his army conquered strategic locations in Wu territory such as Xiling in present day Yichang Hubei Xiakou 夏口 present day Hankou and Wuchang 武昌 present day Ezhou Hubei During the Northern and Southern dynasties period the Wuhan area was part of the successive Southern dynasty states Liu Song 420 479 Southern Qi 479 502 Liang citation needed and Western Liang citation needed In fall 550 Hou Jing sent Ren Yue to attack both Xiao Daxin and Xiao Fan s son Xiao Si 蕭嗣 Ren killed Xiao Si in battle and Xiao Daxin unable to resist surrendered allowing Hou to take his domain under control Meanwhile Xiao Guan who had by now settled at Jiangxia 江夏 in modern Wuhan was planning to attack Hou but this drew Xiao Yi s ire believing that Xiao Guan was intending to contend for the throne and he sent Wang to attack Xiao Guan In summer 567 Chen Xu commissioned Wu Mingche as the governor of Xiang Province and had him command a major part of the troops against Hua along with Chunyu Liang 淳于量 The opposing sides met at Zhuankou 沌口 in modern Wuhan The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts especially poetry and for intellectual studies Cui Hao a celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty visited the Yellow Crane Tower in the early 8th century his poem made it the most celebrated building in southern China 43 In spring 877 Wang Xianzhi captured E Prefecture 鄂州 in modern Wuhan He then returned north joining forces with Huang again and they surrounded Song Wei at Song Prefecture 宋州 in modern Shangqiu Henan In winter 877 Huang Chao pillaged Qi and Huang 黃州 in modern Wuhan Prefectures Before Kublai Khan arrived in 1259 word reached him that Mongke had died Kublai decided to keep the death of his brother secret and continued the attack on the Wuhan area near the Yangtze The present day Wuying Pagoda was constructed at the end of the Song dynasty between attacks by the Mongolian forces Under the Mongol rulers Yuan dynasty after 1301 the Wuchang prefecture headquartered in the town became the capital of Hubei province Hankou from the Ming to late Qing was under the administration of the local government in Hanyang although it was already one of the four major national markets zh 四大名镇 of the Ming dynasty Hanyang s Guiyuan Temple was completed in the 15th year of Shunzhi 1658 44 By the dawn of the 18th century Hankou had become one of China s top four trading centers In the late 19th century railroads were extended on a north south axis through the city making Wuhan an important transshipment point between rail and river traffic Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign controlled merchant districts These districts contained trading firm offices warehouses and docking facilities The French had a concession in Hankou 45 During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom the Wuhan area was controlled for many years by rebel forces and the Yellow Crane Tower Xingfu Temple Zhuodaoquan Temple and other buildings were repurposed or damaged During the Second Opium War known in the West as the Arrow War 1856 1860 the government of the Qing dynasty was defeated by the western powers and signed the Treaties of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking which stipulated eleven cities or regions including Hankou as trading ports In December 1858 James Bruce 8th Earl of Elgin High Commissioner to China led four warships up the Yangtze River in Wuhan to collect the information needed for opening the trading port in Wuhan In the spring of 1861 Counselor Harry Smith Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port On the basis of the Convention of Peking Parkes concluded the Hankou Lend Lease Treaty with Guan Wen the governor general of Hunan and Hubei It brought an area of 30 53 square kilometers 11 79 sq mi along the Yangtze River from latter day Jianghan Road to Hezuo Road to become a British Concession and permitted Britain to set up its consulate in the concession In 1862 Russian tea merchants arrived in the treaty port of Hankou Russians in Hankou established four factories using assembly lines and machinery to produce brick tea and became the city s richest industrialists in what would become the Russian concession 46 47 Japanese immigrants mainly traders also started arriving in 1874 46 nbsp Wuhan in 1864 nbsp Foreign concessions along the Hankou Bund c 1900 In 1889 Zhang Zhidong was transferred from Viceroy of Liangguang Guangdong and Guangxi provinces to Viceroy of Huguang Hunan and Hubei provinces He governed the province for 18 years until 1907 During this period he elucidated the theory of Chinese learning as the basis Western learning for application known as the ti yong ideal He set up many heavy industries founded Hanyang Steel Plant Daye Iron Mine Pingxiang Coal Mine and Hubei Arsenal and set up local textile industries boosting the flourishing modern industry in Wuhan Meanwhile he initiated education reform opened dozens of modern educational organizations successively such as Lianghu Hunan and Hubei Academy of Classical Learning Civil General Institute Military General Institute Foreign Languages Institute and Lianghu Hunan and Hubei General Normal School and selected a great many students for study overseas which well promoted the development of China s modern education Furthermore he trained a modern military and organized a modern army including a zhen and a xie both zhen and xie are military units in the Qing dynasty in Hubei Originally known as the Hubei Arsenal the Hanyang Arsenal was founded in 1891 who diverted funds from the Nanyang Fleet in Guangdong to build the arsenal It cost about 250 000 pounds sterling and was built in 4 years 48 On April 23 1894 construction was completed and the arsenal occupying some 40 acres 160 000 m2 could start production of small caliber cannons It built magazine fed rifles Gruson quick fire guns and cartridges 49 In 1896 the Russian Empire also acquired a concession in Hankou 50 Wuchang Uprising edit Main article Wuchang Uprising nbsp Wuchang Uprising Memorial the original site of revolutionary government in 1911 nbsp Present day Wuhan area in 1915By 1900 according to Collier s magazine Hankou the Yangtze River boom town was the St Louis and Chicago of China 4 On October 10 1911 Sun Yat sen s followers launched the Wuchang Uprising 51 which led to the collapse of the Qing state and 2 000 years of dynastic rule 52 as well as the establishment of the Republic of China 53 The Wuchang Uprising of October 1911 which overthrew the Qing dynasty originated in Wuhan 51 Before the uprising anti Qing secret societies were active in Wuhan In September 1911 the outbreak of the protests in Sichuan forced the Qing authorities to send part of the New Army garrisoned in Wuhan to suppress the rebellion 54 On September 14 the Literary Society 文學社 and the Progressive Association 共進會 two local revolutionary organizations in Hubei 54 set up joint headquarters in Wuchang and planned for an uprising On the morning of October 9 a bomb at the office of the political arrangement exploded prematurely and alerted local authorities 55 The proclamation for the uprising beadroll and the revolutionaries official seal fell into the hands of Rui Cheng the governor general of Hunan and Hubei who demolished the uprising headquarters the same day and set out to arrest the revolutionaries listed in the beadroll 55 This forced the revolutionaries to launch the uprising earlier than planned 51 On the night of October 10 the revolutionaries fired shots to signal the uprising at the engineering barracks of Hubei New Army 51 They then led the New Army of all barracks to join the revolution 56 Under the guidance of Wu Zhaolin Cai Jimin and others this revolutionary army seized the official residence of the governor and government offices 54 Rui Cheng fled in panic into the Chuyu ship Zhang Biao the commander of the Qing army also fled the city On the morning of the 11th the revolutionary army took the whole city of Wuchang but leaders such as Jiang Yiwu and Sun Wu disappeared 51 Thus the leaderless revolutionary army recommended Li Yuanhong the assistant governor of the Qing army as the commander in chief 57 Li founded the Hubei Military Government proclaimed the abolition of the Qing rule in Hubei the founding of the Republic of China and published an open telegram calling for other provinces to join the revolution 51 54 As the revolution spread to other parts of the country the Qing government concentrated loyalist military forces to suppress the uprising in Wuhan From October 17 to December 1 the revolutionary army and local volunteers defended the city in the Battle of Yangxia against better armed and more numerous Qing forces commanded by Yuan Shikai Huang Xing would arrive in Wuhan in early November to take command of the revolutionary army 54 After fierce fighting and heavy casualties Qing forces seized Hankou and Hanyang But Yuan agreed to halt the advance on Wuchang and participated in peace talks which would eventually lead to the return of Sun Yat sen from exile founding of the Republic of China on January 1 1912 53 58 Through the Wuchang Uprising Wuhan is known as the birthplace of the Xinhai Revolution named after the Xinhai year on the Chinese calendar 59 The city has several museums and memorials to the revolution and the thousands of martyrs who died defending the revolution Republic of China edit See also Wuhan nationalist government nbsp A map of Wuhan painted by the Japanese in 1930 with Hankou being the most prosperous sectorWith the northern extension of the Northern Expedition the center of the Great Revolution shifted from the Pearl River basin to the Yangtze River basin On November 26 the Kuomintang Central Political Committee decided to move the capital from Guangzhou to Wuhan In mid December most of the KMT central executive commissioners and national government commissioners arrived in Wuhan set up the temporary joint conference of central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners performed the top functions of central party headquarters and National Government declared they would work in Wuhan on January 1 1927 and decided to combine the towns of Wuchang Hankou and Hanyang into Wuhan City called Capital District The new national government later known as Wuhan nationalist government was based in the Nanyang Building in Hankou while the central party headquarters and other organizations chose their locations in Hankou or Wuchang 18 In March 1927 Mao Zedong appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing Wang Jingwei leader The first phase of the Northern Expedition was interrupted by the political split in the Kuomintang following the formation of the Nanjing faction in April 1927 against the existing faction in Wuhan 60 Members of the Chinese Communist Party who had survived the April 12 massacre met at Wuhan and reelected Chen Duxiu Ch en Tu hsiu as the Party s Secretary General 61 The split was partially motivated by the purge of the Communists within the party which marked the end of the First United Front and Chiang Kai shek briefly stepped down as the commander of the National Revolutionary Army 62 In June 1927 Stalin sent a telegram to the Communists in Wuhan calling for the mobilization of an army of workers and peasants 63 This alarmed Wang Jingwei who decided to break with the Communists and come to terms with Chiang Kai shek The Wuhan coup was a political shift made on July 15 1927 by Wang Jingwei towards Chiang Kai shek and his Shanghai based rival in the Kuomintang The Wuhan Nationalist Government was established in Wuhan on February 21 1927 and ended by August 19 1927 64 After the end of the Northern Expedition Hankou was elevated to a centrally controlled municipality In the 1931 China floods one of the deadliest flood disasters in world history Wuhan was a refuge for flood victims from outlying areas who had been arriving since the late spring But when the city itself was inundated in the early summer and after a catastrophic dike failure just before 6 00 AM on July 27 65 270 an estimated 782 189 urban citizens and rural refugees were left homeless The flood covered an area of 32 square miles and the city was flooded under many feet of water for close to three months 65 269 270 Large numbers gathered on flood islands throughout the city with 30 000 sheltering on a railway embankment in central Hankou With little food and a complete breakdown in sanitation thousands soon began to succumb to diseases 66 Jin Shilong Senior Engineer at the Hubei Flood Prevention Agency described the flooding There was no warning only a sudden great wall of water Most of Wuhan s buildings in those days were only one story high and for many people there was no escape they died by the tens of thousands I was just coming off duty at the company s main office a fairly new three story building near the center of town When I heard the terrible noise and saw the wall of water coming I raced to the top story of the building I was in one of the tallest and strongest buildings left standing At that time no one knew whether the water would subside or rise even higher 65 270 The high water mark was reached on August 19 at Hankou with the water level exceeding 16 m 53 ft above normal 67 68 In 1936 when natural disaster struck Central China with widespread flooding affecting Hebei Hunan Jiangxi Wuhan and Chongqing caused by the Yangtze and Huai Rivers bursting their banks Ong Seok Kim as Chairman of the Sitiawan Fundraising and Disaster Relief Committee raised money and materials in support of the victims 69 70 71 72 nbsp The gunboat ZhongshanDuring the Second Sino Japanese War and following the fall of Nanking in December 1937 Wuhan had become the provisional capital of China s Kuomintang government and became another focal point of pitched air battles beginning in early 1938 between modern monoplane bomber and fighter aircraft of the Imperial Japanese forces and the Chinese Air Force which included support from the Soviet Volunteer Group in both planes and personnel as U S support in war materials waned As the battle raged on through 1938 Wuhan and the surrounding region had become the site of the Battle of Wuhan After being taken by the Japanese in late 1938 Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China nbsp Chiang Kai Shek inspecting Chinese soldiers in Wuhan as Japanese forces approach the cityIn early October 1938 Japanese troops moved east and north in the outskirts of Wuhan As a result numerous companies and enterprises and large numbers of people had to withdraw from Wuhan to the west of Hubei and Sichuan The KMT navy undertook the responsibility of defending the Yangtze River on patrol and covering the withdrawal On October 24 while overseeing the waters of the Yangtze River near the town of Jinkou Jiangxia District in Wuhan in Wuchang the KMT gunboat Zhongshan came up against six Japanese aircraft Though two were eventually shot down the Zhongshan sank with 25 casualties Raised from the bottom of the Yangtze River in 1997 and restored at a local shipyard the Zhongshan has been moved to a purpose built museum in Wuhan s suburban Jiangxia District which opened on September 26 2011 citation needed As a key center on the Yangtze Wuhan was an important base for Japanese operations in China 73 On December 18 1944 in a planned strategic move and as revenge for the torture and execution of three captured American pilots by Japanese soldiers in the city Wuhan was bombed by 77 American bombers with the approval of Chiang Kai Shek This set off a firestorm that destroyed much of the military resources of the city 74 For the next three days Wuhan was bombed by the Americans destroying all of the docks and warehouses of Wuhan as well as the Japanese air bases in the city The air raids also killed thousands of Chinese civilians 74 According to casualty statistics compiled by Hankou city in 1946 more than 20 000 were killed or injured in the December bombings of 1944 75 Wuhan returned to Chinese control in September 1945 Administratively Wuchang and Hanyang were initially combined into a new City of Wuchang but in October 1946 were separated into the City of Wuchang including Wuchang only and the County of Hanyang Hankou became a centrally controlled municipality in August 1947 Militarily the Wuhan Forward Headquarters was established in Wuhan headed by Bai Chongxi 76 nbsp People s Liberation Army troops at Zhongshan Avenue Hankou on May 16 1949During the later stages of the Chinese Civil War Bai sought to broker peace proposing that the Communist Party could rule northern China while the Nationalist government retained southern China This was rejected and on May 15 1949 Bai and the Wuhan garrison retreated from the city People s Liberation Army troops entered Wuhan on the afternoon of Monday May 16 1949 77 78 79 People s Republic edit nbsp In his poem Swimming 1956 engraved on the 1954 Flood Memorial in Wuhan Mao Zedong envisions walls of stone to be erected upstream 80 The Changjiang Water Resources Commission was reestablished in February 1950 with its headquarters in Wuhan From June to September 1954 the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province Due to an unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954 the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June In 1969 a large stone monument was erected in the riverside park in Hankou honoring the heroic deeds in fighting the 1954 Yangtze River floods Before construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge Hunslet Engine Company built two extra heavy 0 8 0 locomotives for loading the train ferries for crossing the Yangtze River in Wuhan The project of building the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge also known as the First Yangtze River Bridge was regarded as one of the key projects during the first five year plan On October 25 1955 construction began on the bridge proper The same day in 1957 the whole project was completed and an opening to traffic ceremony was held on October 15 The First Yangtze River Bridge united the Beijing Hankou railway with the Guangdong Hankou railway into the Beijing Guangzhou railway making Wuhan a thoroughfare to nine provinces 九省通衢 in name and in fact After Chengdu Conference Mao went to Chongqing and Wuhan in April to inspect the countryside and factories In Wuhan he called all the leaders of provinces and municipalities who had not attended Chengdu Conference to report their work Tian Jiaying the secretary of Mao said that Wuhan Conference was a supplement to Chengdu Conference 81 In July 1967 civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident July 20th Incident an armed conflict between two hostile groups who were fighting for control over the city at the height of the Cultural Revolution 82 In 1981 the Wuhan City Government commenced reconstruction of the Yellow Crane Tower at a new location about 1 km 0 62 mi from the original site and it was completed in 1985 In 1957 the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was built with one trestle of the bridge on the site of the tower which had been last destroyed in 1884 83 During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests students in Wuhan blocked the Yangtze River Railway bridge and another 4 000 gathered at the railway station 84 400 About one thousand students staged a railroad sit in Rail traffic on the Beijing Guangzhou and Wuhan Dalian lines was interrupted The students also urged employees of major state owned enterprises to go on strike 84 405 The situation was so tense that residents reportedly began a bank run and resorted to panic buying 84 408 In the wake of the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7 1999 protests broke out throughout China including in Wuhan 85 On June 22 2000 a Wuhan Airlines flight from Enshi to Wuhan was forced to circle for 30 minutes due to thunderstorms The aircraft eventually crashed on the banks of Han River in Hanyang District 86 all on board perished there were varying accounts of number of crews and passengers In addition the crash also killed 7 people on the ground 87 88 89 Chinese protesters organized boycotts of the French owned retail chain Carrefour in major Chinese cities including Kunming Hefei and Wuhan accusing the French nation of pro secessionist conspiracy and anti Chinese racism 90 The BBC reported that hundreds of people demonstrated in Beijing Wuhan Hefei Kunming and Qingdao 91 92 On May 19 2011 Fang Binxing the Principal of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications also known as Father of China s Great Fire Wall 93 was hit on the chest by a shoe thrown at him by a Huazhong University of Science and Technology student who calls herself hanjunyi 寒君依 or 小湖北 while Fang was giving a lecture at Wuhan University 94 95 96 97 98 99 The city has been subject to devastating floods which are now supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam a project which was completed in 2008 100 101 The 2008 Chinese winter storms damaged water supply equipment in Wuhan up to 100 000 people were out of running water when several water pipes burst cutting the supply to local households 102 The 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave hit Wuhan on July 3 103 In the 2010 China floods the Han River at Wuhan experienced its worst flooding in twenty years as officials continued sandbagging efforts along the Han and Yangtze Rivers in the city and checked reservoirs 104 In the 2011 China floods Wuhan was flooded with parts of the city losing power 105 In the 2016 China floods Wuhan saw 570 mm 22 in of rainfall during the first week of July surpassing the record that fell on the city in 1991 A red alert for heavy rainfall was issued on July 2 the same day that eight people died after a 15 meter 49 ft section of a 2 m 6 6 ft tall wall collapsed on top of them 106 The city s subway system the Wuhan Metro was partially submerged as was the main railway station 107 At least 14 city residents were killed one was missing and more than 80 000 were relocated 108 In early July 2019 there were protests against plans for a new incinerator in Xinzhou District The 2019 Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan in October 109 110 In December 2019 SARS CoV 2 a novel coronavirus that caused the COVID 19 pandemic was first discovered in Wuhan 21 22 and the city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic in January 2020 23 Wuhan and other Hubei cities were placed under lockdown for nearly three months to contain the disease 23 111 On April 8 2020 the Wuhan lockdown officially came to an end after no new domestic cases were reported in Hubei province 112 The virus is believed to have been a mutation of a virus that existed in bats which came from a wet market in Wuhan although no bats are sold there 113 There were however some 38 other species of animals offered including marmots raccoons badgers hedgehogs peacocks and various reptiles including some endangered species relevant Geography editOverview edit nbsp Map including the Wuhan area AMS 1953 Wuhan is in east central Hubei at latitude 29 58 31 22 N and longitude 113 41 115 05 E Wuhan sits at the confluence of the Han River flowing into the Yangtze River at the East of the Jianghan Plain along the Yangtze s middle reaches The metropolitan area comprises three parts Wuchang Hankou and Hanyang commonly called the Three Towns of Wuhan hence the name Wuhan combining Wu from the first city and Han from the other two The consolidation of these cities occurred in 1927 and Wuhan was thereby established The three former cities face each other across the rivers and are linked by bridges including one of the first modern bridges in China known as the First Bridge Wuchang lies south east of the Yangtze River that separates it from both Hankou and Hanyang Hankou sits north of the Yangtze River separating it from Wuchang Hankou is north of the Han River separating it from Hanyang Hanyang lies west of the Yangtze separating it from Wuchang Hanyang is south of the Han river separating it from Hankou nbsp East LakeIt is simple in terrain low and flat in the middle and hilly in the south with the Yangtze and Han rivers winding through the city The She River enters the Yangtze in Huangpi District Wuhan occupies a land area of 8 494 41 square kilometers 3 279 71 sq mi most of which is alluvial plain and decorated with hills and a great number of lakes and ponds Water makes up one quarter of Wuhan s urban territory which is the highest percentage among major cities in China 114 Wuhan has nearly 200 lakes including the East Lake of 33 km2 and Tangxun Lake which are the largest lakes entirely within a city in China 114 Other well known lakes include South Lake and Sand Lake Liangzi Lake the largest lake by surface area in Hubei province is located in the southeast of Jiangxia District At 709 m 2 326 ft above sea level the highest point in Wuhan is the main peak of Yunwu Mountain 云雾山 in northwestern Huangpi District There are also several mountains within the city limits of Wuhan including Mount Luojia 珞珈山 in Wuchang District as well as Mount Hong 洪山 and Mount Yujia 喻家山 瑜珈山 in Hongshan District 115 Climate edit Wuhan s climate is humid subtropical Koppen Cfa with abundant rainfall in summer and four distinctive seasons Wuhan is known for its humid summers when dewpoints can often reach 26 C 79 F or more 116 Historically along with Chongqing and Nanjing Wuhan is referred to as one of the Three Furnacelike Cities along the Yangtze River for their hot summers 117 However the climate data of recent years suggests that Wuhan is no longer among the top tier of The hottest cities in summer list the New Four Furnacelike Cities are Chongqing Fuzhou Hangzhou and Nanchang 118 119 Spring and autumn are generally mild while winter is cool with quite low rainfall and occasional snow The monthly 24 hour average temperature ranges from 4 1 C 39 4 F in January to 29 3 C 84 7 F in July 120 Annual precipitation totals just under 1 320 mm 52 in 120 the majority of which falls from April to July the annual mean temperature is 17 4 C 63 3 F 120 the frost free period lasts 211 to 272 days 121 With monthly possible sunshine percentage ranging from 30 percent in January to 53 percent in August the city proper receives 1 783 hours of bright sunshine annually 122 Extreme low and high temperatures recorded are 18 1 C 1 F on January 31 1977 and 39 7 C 103 F on July 27 2017 unofficial record of 41 3 C 106 F in 1934 when 123 124 Climate data for Wuhan 1991 2020 normals extremes 1951 present Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec YearRecord high C F 25 4 77 7 29 1 84 4 32 4 90 3 35 1 95 2 36 1 97 0 37 8 100 0 39 7 103 5 39 6 103 3 37 6 99 7 34 4 93 9 30 4 86 7 24 2 75 6 39 7 103 5 Mean daily maximum C F 8 3 46 9 11 4 52 5 16 3 61 3 22 7 72 9 27 3 81 1 30 4 86 7 33 2 91 8 32 8 91 0 28 9 84 0 23 3 73 9 17 1 62 8 10 8 51 4 21 9 71 4 Daily mean C F 4 1 39 4 7 0 44 6 11 6 52 9 17 8 64 0 22 7 72 9 26 3 79 3 29 3 84 7 28 6 83 5 24 3 75 7 18 3 64 9 12 0 53 6 6 2 43 2 17 4 63 2 Mean daily minimum C F 1 0 33 8 3 6 38 5 7 9 46 2 13 7 56 7 18 8 65 8 23 0 73 4 26 2 79 2 25 4 77 7 20 8 69 4 14 8 58 6 8 4 47 1 2 8 37 0 13 9 57 0 Record low C F 18 1 0 6 14 8 5 4 5 0 23 0 0 3 31 5 7 2 45 0 13 0 55 4 17 3 63 1 16 4 61 5 10 1 50 2 1 3 34 3 7 1 19 2 10 1 13 8 18 1 0 6 Average precipitation mm inches 52 5 2 07 66 4 2 61 91 0 3 58 137 5 5 41 160 6 6 32 212 9 8 38 255 5 10 06 106 3 4 19 72 2 2 84 66 4 2 61 58 2 2 29 30 7 1 21 1 310 2 51 57 Average precipitation days 0 1 mm 9 7 9 9 12 6 11 6 12 5 12 0 11 1 9 7 7 7 8 5 9 1 7 2 121 6Average snowy days 4 3 2 4 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 4 9 4Average relative humidity 76 76 75 74 74 78 76 77 75 76 77 74 76Mean monthly sunshine hours 95 4 97 8 126 4 152 5 165 9 155 8 210 9 214 8 166 0 149 1 132 1 116 7 1 783 4Percent possible sunshine 30 31 34 39 39 37 49 53 45 43 37 40 40Source China Meteorological Administration 120 125 122 Government and politics edit nbsp The main gate of Wuhan Municipal Party CommitteeWuhan is a sub provincial city Municipal government is regulated by the local Chinese Communist Party CCP led by the Wuhan CCP Secretary Chinese 武汉市委书记 Wang Zhonglin 王忠林 The local CCP issues administrative orders collects taxes manages the economy and directs a standing committee of the Municipal People s Congress in making policy decisions and overseeing the local government Government officials include the Mayor of Wuhan 市长 Cheng Yongwen 程用文 and vice mayors Numerous bureaus focus on law public security and other affairs Zhou Xianwang 周先旺 was mayor from 2018 to 2021 Administrative divisions edit Main articles List of administrative divisions of Hubei Administrative divisions and List of township level divisions of Hubei Wuhan The sub provincial city of Wuhan currently comprises 13 districts 126 As of the Sixth Census of China in 2010 the 13 districts comprised 160 township level divisions including 156 subdistricts 3 towns 1 townships 7 8 Map District Chinese S Pinyin Population 2010 census 127 7 8 Area km2 9 Density km2 nbsp Jiang an Jianghan Qiaokou Hanyang Wuchang Qingshan Hongshan Dongxihu Hannan Caidian Jiangxia Huangpi XinzhouCentral Districts 6 434 373 888 42 7 242Jiang an 江岸区 Jiang an Qu 895 635 64 24 13 942Jianghan 江汉区 Jianghan Qu 683 492 33 43 20 445Qiaokou 硚口区 Qiaokǒu Qu 828 644 46 39 17 863Hanyang 汉阳区 Hanyang Qu 792 183 128 108 34 7 312Wuchang 武昌区 Wǔchang Qu 1 199 127 87 42 13 717Qingshan 青山区 Qingshan Qu 485 375 68 40 7 096Hongshan 洪山区 Hongshan Qu 1 549 917 129 480 20 3 228Suburban and Rural Districts 3 346 271 7 605 99 440Dongxihu 东西湖区 Dōngxihu Qu 451 880 439 19 1 029Hannan 汉南区 Hannan Qu 114 970 287 70 400Caidian 蔡甸区 Caidian Qu 410 888 1 108 10 371Jiangxia 江夏区 Jiangxia Qu 644 835 2 010 00 321Huangpi 黄陂区 Huangpi Qu 874 938 2 261 00 387Xinzhou 新洲区 Xinzhōu Qu 848 760 1 500 00 566Water Region 水域 4 748 Total 9 785 392 8 494 41 1 152 Diplomatic missions edit Main article List of diplomatic missions in China Wuhan There are four countries that have consulates in Wuhan Consulate Year Consular District nbsp France Consulate General Wuhan 130 October 10 1998 Hubei Hunan Jiangxi nbsp United States Consulate General Wuhan 131 November 20 2008 Hubei Hunan Henan Jiangxi nbsp Republic of Korea Consulate General Wuhan 132 October 25 2010 Hubei Hunan Henan Jiangxi nbsp United Kingdom Consulate General Wuhan 133 January 8 2015 Hubei HenanThe current U S Consul General the Honorable Mr Jamie Fouss was posted to Wuhan in August 2017 The office of the U S Consulate General Central China located in Wuhan celebrated its official opening on November 20 2008 and is the first new American consulate in China in over 20 years 134 135 In 2015 Japan 136 and Russia 137 announced their intentions to establish consular offices in Wuhan Economy edit nbsp Wuhan Tiandi shopping plaza in Jiang an DistrictUp until the 21st century Wuhan was largely an agricultural region Since 2004 it has been a focal point of the Rise of Central China Plan which aims to build less developed inland economies into hubs of advanced manufacturing Since 1890 114 the steel industry has been the backbone of Wuhan s industry 138 In 2010 automobile industry exceeded GDP for Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation WISCO steel for the first time There are 5 car manufacturers including Dongfeng Honda Citroen SAIC GM DFM Passenger Vehicle and Dongfeng Renault Dongfeng Citroen Automobile Co Ltd is headquartered in the city 138 As of 2016 Wuhan has attracted foreign investment from over 80 countries with 5 973 foreign invested enterprises established in the city with a total capital injection of 22 45 billion USD 139 Among these about 50 French companies including Renault and PSA Group have operations in the city representing over one third of French investment in China and the highest level of French investment in any Chinese city 140 Wuhan is an important center for economy trade finance transportation information technology and education in China Its major industries include optic electronic automobile manufacturing iron and steel manufacturing new pharmaceutical sector biology engineering new materials industry and environmental protection Environmental sustainability is highlighted in Wuhan s list of emerging industries which include energy efficiency technology and renewable energy 139 As of 2021 Wuhan is ranked among the world s top 100 financial centers according to the Global Financial Centres Index 32 nbsp Wuhan CBD nbsp Wuhan Yangtze River Tunnel of Road and Rail Industrial zones edit Major industrial zones in Wuhan include in chronological order Wuhan Economic and Technological Development ZoneWuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone is a national level industrial zone incorporated in 1993 141 Its current zone size is about 10 25 square km and it plans to expand to 25 50 square km Industries encouraged in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone include Auto mobile Production Assembly Biotechnology Pharmaceuticals Chemicals Production and Processing Food Beverage Processing Heavy Industry and Telecommunications Equipment Wuhan Export Processing ZoneWuhan Export Processing Zone was established in 2000 It is located in Wuhan Economic and Technology Development Zone planned to cover 2 7 square kilometers 1 0 square mile of land The first 0 7 square kilometer 0 3 square mile area has already been created 142 Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development ZoneWuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone is a national level high tech development zone Optical electronics telecommunications and equipment manufacturing are the core industries of Wuhan East Lake High Tech Development Zone ELHTZ while software outsourcing and electronics are also encouraged ELHTZ is China s largest production center for optoelectronic products with key players like Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable 143 the largest fiber optical cable maker in China and Fiberhome Telecommunications 144 Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone also represents the development center for China s laser industry with key players such as HG Tech 145 and Chutian Laser being based in the zone 146 Wuhan Optical Valley Guanggu Software ParkWuhan Optical Valley Guanggu Software Park is located in Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone Wuhan Optics Valley Software Park is jointly developed by East Lake High Tech Development Zone and Dalian Software Park Co Ltd 147 The planned area is 0 67 square kilometers 0 26 square miles with total floor area of 6 000 000 square meters 65 000 000 square feet The zone is 8 5 km 5 28 mi away from the 316 National Highway and is 46 7 km 29 02 mi away from the Wuhan Tianhe Airport Wuhan BiolakeBiolake is an industrial base established in 2008 in the Optics Valley of China Located in East Lake New Technology Development Zone of Wuhan Biolake covers 15 km2 5 8 sq mi and has six parks including Bio innovation Park Bio pharma Park Bio agriculture Park Bio manufacturing Park Medical Device Park and Medical Health Park to accommodate both research activities and living 148 149 150 151 152 Demographics editHistorical populationYearPop 19531 427 300 19824 101 000 187 3 19906 901 911 68 3 20008 312 700 20 4 20109 785 388 17 7 202012 326 500 26 0 202213 648 900 10 7 Population size may be affected by changes on administrative divisions 2022 yearend est 153 1953 154 155 1982 156 1990 157 2000 127 2007 158 2015 159 Wuhan is the most populous city in Central China and among the most populous in China In the Seventh Census of China in 2020 Wuhan was home to 12 326 500 inhabitants a 25 97 increase by 2 5411 million compared to the last census in 2010 2010 2020 is the fastest growing 10 years in history since the census was established averaging 2 34 annually and it was the first time that Wuhan s population reached 10 million 160 The encompassing metropolitan area was estimated by the OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have as of 2010 update a population of 19 million 161 162 As of November 2019 urban development status considering both spatial and socioeconomic processes has been examined using Night Time Lighting data and land cover data as proxies it showed Wuhan s high concentration of socioeconomic activities compared to its urban spatial development 163 Religion edit Religion in Wuhan 2017 164 Chinese religion or not religious including Taoists 0 9 79 2 Buddhism 14 7 Protestantism 2 9 Islam 1 6 Catholicism 0 3 Other 1 6 According to a survey published in 2017 79 2 of the population of Wuhan are either irreligious or practice worship of gods and ancestors among these 0 9 are Taoists Among other religious doctrines 14 7 of the population adheres to Buddhism 2 9 to Protestantism 0 3 to Catholicism and 1 6 to Islam and 1 6 of the population adheres to unspecified other religions 164 Religious sites in Wuhan nbsp Baotong Buddhist Temple nbsp Gude Buddhist Temple nbsp St Alexander Nevsky Church nbsp Holy Family Catholic ChurchTransportation editRailways edit China Railway Wuhan Group manages the Wuhan Railway Hub Wuhan Railway Hub is considered one of the four key railway hubs of China 165 The city of Wuhan is served by three major railway stations the Hankou railway station in Hankou the Wuchang railway station in Wuchang and the Wuhan railway station located in a newly developed area east of the East Lake Hongshan District As the stations are many miles apart it is important for passengers to be aware of the particular station s used by a particular train The original Hankou Station was the terminus for the Jinghan railway from Beijing while the Wuchang Station was the terminus for the Yuehan railway to Guangzhou Since the construction of the First Yangtze Bridge and the linking of the two lines into the Jingguang railway both Hankou and Wuchang stations have been served by trains going to all directions which contrasts with the situation in such cities as New York or Moscow where different stations serve different directions With the opening of the Hefei Wuhan high speed railway on April 1 2009 166 Wuhan became served by high speed trains with Hefei Nanjing and Shanghai several trains a day now connect the city with Shanghai getting there in under six hours As of early 2010 most of these express trains leave from the Hankou railway station In 2006 construction began on the new Wuhan railway station with 11 platforms located on the northeastern outskirts of the city In December 2009 the station was opened as China unveiled its second high speed train with scheduled runs from Guangzhou to Wuhan Billed as the fastest train in the world it can reach a speed of 394 km h 244 82 mph The travel time between the two cities has been reduced from ten and a half hours to just three The rail service has been extended north to Beijing 167 As of 2011 update the new Wuhan railway station is primarily used by the Wuhan Guangzhou high speed trains while most regular trains to other destinations continue to use the Hankou and Wuchang stations Construction work is carried out on several lines of the new Wuhan Metropolitan Area intercity railway which will eventually connect Wuhan s three main rail terminals with several stations throughout the city s outer areas and farther suburbs as well as with the nearby cities of Xianning Huangshi Huanggang and Xiaogan The first line of the system the one to Xianning opened for passenger operations at the end of 2013 The line to Xiaogen opened on December 1 2016 and it was extended with the opening of the Wuhan Shiyan high speed railway to Shiyan on November 29 2019 168 169 The main freight railway station and classification yard of the Wuhan metropolitan area is the extensive Wuhan North railway station with 112 tracks and over 650 switches It is located in Hengdian Subdistrict zh of Huangpi District located 20 km 12 mi north of the Wuhan Station and 23 km 14 mi from Hankou Station nbsp Dazhimen railway station out of use currently nbsp Wuchang railway station nbsp Hankou railway station nbsp Wuhan railway station nbsp Platform view of Wuhan railway station nbsp Map of Wuhan Metropolitan Area intercity railways Metro edit Main article Wuhan Metro Wuhan Metro is a rapid transit system serving the city of Wuhan Owned and operated by Wuhan Metro Group Co Ltd the network now includes 11 lines 282 stations and 435 km 270 mi of route length Line 1 the first line in the system opened on July 28 2004 making Wuhan the seventh city in mainland China with a rapid transit system after Beijing Tianjin Shanghai Guangzhou Changchun and Dalian 170 Line 2 opened on December 28 2012 and is the first underground metro line crossing the Yangtze River Commuting across the Yangtze River and Han River has been the bottleneck of Wuhan traffic However the appearance of Wuhan Metro greatly relieved this problem With 1 22 billion annual passengers in 2019 Wuhan Metro is the sixth busiest rapid transit system in mainland China 171 Wuhan Metro is a rapidly developing metro system There are a number of lines or sections under construction The government of Wuhan City promised the citizens that at least two lines or sections open every year 172 Due to the COVID 19 pandemic the entire network was out of service from January 23 to March 27 2020 nbsp Wuhan Metro Map nbsp Wuhan Metro Line 4 nbsp Train Interior of Wuhan Metro Line 7 nbsp Taipingyang Station nbsp Huangpu Road Station nbsp Guidepost of Wuhan Metro Trams edit nbsp A tram in University Science Park Station nbsp Optics Valley Sky RailMain article Trams in Wuhan Trams were brought to the streets of Wuhan on July 28 2017 with the first line Auto city T1 Line opened that day 173 The trams under construction or planning in Wuhan are Auto city trams with Lines T1 T2 T6 and T8 in the Wuhan Economic Development Area in the far western reaches on Hanyang T1 Line is operational as of 2017 Optics Valley trams two lines T1 and T2 south and east of Guanggu Circle Guanggu Guangchang in southeastern Wuchang The system opened on January 18 2018 174 The Old Hankou Streetcar a loop line around Hankou city Maritime transport edit Wuhan is a major hub for maritime transport in central China The Port of Wuhan provide services for the local population and shipping services Ferry edit Located on the banks of the Yangtze River Wuhan has a long history of ferry services Modern ferry services were established in 1900 by steam boat In 1937 a train ferry was established to transport train cars from Hankou to Wuchang 175 There are numbered stops around Wuhan where people can get on and off the ferry and there is a tourist ferry in the night Currently ferry services are provided by the Wuhan Ferry Company In 2010 the company bought ten new ships to replace those that had been in service for 29 years 176 Airports edit Main article Wuhan Tianhe International Airport nbsp Terminal 3 of Wuhan Tianhe AirportWuhan Tianhe International Airport is one of the busiest airports in central China The airport opened in April 1995 to replace the old Hankou Wangjiadun Airport and Nanhu Airport as the major airport of Wuhan 177 178 It is located in Wuhan s suburban Huangpi District 26 kilometers 16 mi north of Wuhan city proper The extension of Line 2 of Wuhan Metro to Tianhe Airport opened on December 28 2016 179 It has also been selected as China s fourth international hub airport after Beijing Capital Shanghai Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun A second terminal was completed in March 2008 having been started in February 2005 with an investment of CNY 3 372 billion International flights to neighboring Asian countries have also been enhanced including direct flights to Tokyo and Nagoya Japan Terminal 3 has been available for service since early 2017 Wuhan Hannan General Airport is an airport dedicated to general aviation located in Hannan District of Wuhan It is the largest airport in China that only handles general aviation 180 On December 1 2017 construction began on Wuhan Caidian General Airport another airport dedicated to general aviation which is located in Caidian District of Wuhan 181 Highways and expressways edit Numerous major highways and expressways pass through Wuhan including China National Highway 107 China National Highway 316 China National Highway 318 G42 Shanghai Chengdu Expressway G0422 Wuhan Shenzhen ExpresswayBicycle sharing system edit As of May 2011 update the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle bike share systems in China were the largest in the world with around 90 000 and 60 000 bicycles respectively 182 In 2012 the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle programs in China are the largest in the world with around 90 000 and 60 000 bicycles respectively China has seen a rise in private dockless bike shares with fleets that dwarf systems in size outside China 183 Initially a number of traditional third generation docked public bike systems operated by local municipal governments opened across China with the largest ones being in Wuhan and Hangzhou The first was introduced in Beijing in 2007 However third generation bike sharing is not considered successful for the majority cities in China Bike sharing in Beijing virtually stopped and it also has encountered difficulties in Shanghai and Wuhan 184 Destinations edit nbsp Replica instruments of ancient originals are played at the Hubei Provincial Museum A replica set of bronze concert bells is in the background and a set of stone chimes is to the right nbsp Hubei Provincial MuseumThe Yellow Crane Tower Huanghelou is presumed to have been first built in approximately 220 AD The tower has been destroyed and reconstructed numerous times and was burned last according to some sources in 1884 The tower underwent complete reconstruction in 1981 The reconstruction utilized modern materials and added an elevator while maintaining the traditional design in the tower s outward appearance Wuchang has the largest and second largest lakes within a city in China the East Lake and Tangxun Lake as well as the South Lake East Lake in Wuhan is six times the size of the West Lake in Hangzhou Zhejiang province The total area is more than 80 km2 31 sq mi of which the lake is covering an area of 33 km2 13 sq mi In the springtime the shores of East Lake become a garden of flowers with the Mei blossoms as the king and the Cherry Blossom as the queen among the species at East Lake Cherry Blossom Park Another famous flower is the lotus The lake has a long history and especially the Chu Kingdom is well represented around East Lake Moreover in the Moshan Botanic Garden there are many types of plum blossoms as well as lotus flowers nbsp Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng made in 433 BC now on display at the Hubei Provincial Museum in WuhanThe Hubei Provincial Museum With over 200 000 valued artifacts this is one of the leading museums in China Especially the artefacts from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng Zeng Hou Yi who lived in the 5th century BC is a world unique treasure The bell chime of Marquis Yi of Zeng is a bronze instrument performed 2430 years ago in ancient China Warring States Period and was discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Suizhou Hubei in 1978 The whole chime weighs 5 tons can perfectly play sound which was heard 2430 years ago and was considered The Eighth Wonder of the World The Wuhan Museum has a collection of more than 100 000 artifacts including ceramic bronze ware paintings and calligraphy jade wood carving enamel ware seals and so on As a modern comprehensive museum Wuhan Museum has the function in cultural relic collection academic reach publicity and education cultural exchange and recreation and entertainment 185 Happy Valley Wuhan is a theme park in Hongshan District Opened on April 29 2012 it is the fifth installation of the Happy Valley theme park chain 186 The Rock and Bonsai Museum includes a mounted platybelodon skeleton many unique stones a quartz crystal the size of an automobile and an outdoor garden with miniature trees in the penjing Chinese Bonsai style Jiqing Street 吉庆街 holds many roadside restaurants and street performers during the evening and is the site of a Live Show with stories of events on this street by contemporary writer Chi Li The Lute Platform in Hanyang was where the legendary musician Yu Boya is said to have played This is the birthplace of the renowned legend of seeking a soul mate through high mountains and flowing water According to the story behind the Chinese word 知音 zhiyin understanding music Yu Boya played for the last time over the grave of his friend Zhong Ziqi then smashed his lute because the only person able to appreciate his music was dead 187 Mao s Villa 毛澤東別墅 Mao Zedong s villa between 1960 and 1974 includes garden living quarters conference room bomb shelter and swimming pool 188 189 Some luxury riverboat tours begin here after a flight from Beijing or Shanghai with several days of flatland cruising and then climbing through the Three Gorges with passage upstream past the Gezhouba and Three Gorges dams to the city of Chongqing With the completion of the dam a number of cruises now start from the upstream side and continue west with tourists traveling by motorcoach from Wuhan Wuying Pagoda or the Shadowless Pagoda is the oldest standing architectural feature in Wuhan dating from the closing days of the Southern Song dynasty Chu River and Han Street a shopping district located in Wuchang with many tourist attractions including Han Show theater Madame Tussauds wax museum and Movie Culture Park etc This project was initiated as a water connecting channel between East Lake and Shahu Lake Wuhan Zoo in Hanyang 190 The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market is a live animal and seafood market in the Jianghan District The market is located in the newer part of the city near shops and apartment blocks and is close to Hankou railway station The market has been identified as a possible point of origin of the COVID 19 pandemic 191 The Wuhan Institute of Virology WIV is located in the Wuchan District It is the key laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for newly emerging and fulminating infectious disease pathogen and biosecurity 192 The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses 193 nbsp View from within the Wuhan Stones Park 武汉奇石园 along Lumo Road Education editSchools and universities edit nbsp The old library of Wuhan UniversitySee also List of universities and colleges in Hubei As of 2023 there are 82 higher educational institutions in Wuhan making it a leading educational hub in the Central China region 194 Prominent institutions include Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan University Three state level development zones and many enterprise incubators are also significant in Wuhan s education and business development Wuhan ranks third in China in overall strength of science and technology 195 As of the end of 2013 in Wuhan there were 1 024 kindergartens with 224 300 children 590 primary schools with 424 000 students 369 general high schools with 314 000 students 105 secondary vocational and technical schools with 98 600 students and 80 colleges and universities with 966 400 undergraduates and junior college students and 107 400 postgraduate students 196 There are several international schools in Wuhan Wuhan is also a major city in the world by scientific research outputs and it ranks 10th globally 6th in the Asia Pacific and 5th in China after Beijing Shanghai Nanjing and Guangzhou 29 nbsp Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyHuazhong University of Science and Technology HUST located in the Optics Valley of China near East Lake is a Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University 197 HUST manages Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto electronics WNLO which is one of the five national laboratories in China HUST is also one of four Chinese universities eligible to run the national laboratory and the national major science and technology infrastructure Founded in 1953 as Huazhong Institute of Technology it combined with three other universities including former Tongji Medical University founded in 1907 in 2000 to form the new HUST and has 42 schools and departments covering 12 comprehensive disciplines 198 199 HUST has 12 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Sciences and 17 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Engineering 200 As of 2022 the U S News 2023 U S News amp World Report ranked HUST 109th in the world 15th in Asia and 6th in China 201 while the Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked the university 96th in the world 14th in Asia and 8th in China 202 More than 2 000 international students from 120 countries pursue degrees at HUST 203 Wuhan University is another Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University 197 which was ranked 101th in the world 15th in Asia and 9th in China by the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities 204 and 150th in the world by the U S News amp World Report 205 whiile it was ranked the 194th by the 2024 QS World University Rankings 206 and 164th by the 2024 Times Higher Education 207 established in 1893 the old Wuhan University absorbed three other schools two of them being its spin offs since the 1950s in 2000 to become a university with 36 schools in 6 faculties Since the 1950s it has received international students from more than 109 countries 208 Scientific research edit Wuhan contains three national development zones and four scientific and technological development parks as well as numerous enterprise incubators over 350 research institutes 1470 high tech enterprises and over 400 000 experts and technicians Founded in 1958 the Wuhan Branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the twelve national branches of CAS It is composed of 9 independent organizations including the headquarters at Xiaohongshan Wuchang It has had a staff of 3 900 among which 8 are CAS fellows and one is a Chinese Academy of Engineering fellow As of 2013 the achievements gained by WHB had won 23 National Awards and 778 Provincial Awards 209 Wuhan Research Institute of Post and Telecommunications now known as FiberHome Technologies Group is the national center for optical communication research in China and is where the first optical fiber in the country was produced 210 The Wuhan Institute of Virology is also operated by the CAS Wuhan University of Technology is another major national university with three main campuses located in the Wuchang District Founded in the year 2000 it was merged from three major universities Wuhan University of Technology established in 1948 Wuhan Transportation University established in 1946 and Wuhan Automotive Polytechnic University established in 1958 Wuhan University of Technology together with China University of Geosciences Wuhan Huazhong Agricultural University Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and Central China Normal University or Huazhong Normal University are the leading Chinese universities accredited by the Ministry of Education under the State Project 211 for Chinese higher education institutions Other major research universities have its seat in the city including Wuhan University of Science and Technology Hubei University Hubei University of Technology and South Central University for Nationalities 211 212 Media edit nbsp Tortoise Mountain TV TowerThe headquarters of Hubei Television is located in Wuchang District Tortoise Mountain TV Tower is China s first self developed TV tower opened in 1986 The modern newspapers in Wuhan can be dated back to 1866 when Hankow Times a newspaper in English was founded Before 1949 more than 50 newspapers and magazines were published by foreigners in Wuhan Chao wen Hsin pao founded by Ai Xiaomei in 1873 was the first Chinese newspaper to appear in Hankou one of the cities that was merged into Wuhan During the Northern Expedition era 1926 1928 journalism in Wuhan came to a climax more than 120 newspapers and periodicals including national newspapers such as Central Daily News and Republican Daily News were founded or published during this time 213 Chutian Metropolis Daily and Wuhan Evening News are two major local commercial tabloid newspapers Both of them have entered the list of 100 most widely circulated newspapers of the world citation needed Culture editThe plum blossom is the city s emblem chosen partly because of the long history of local plum cultivation and use and partly to recognize the plum s current economic significance in terms of cultivation and research Local wild plums were used medicinally during the Qin and Han dynasties Cultivation of the fruit began during the Song dynasty Some traditional new year customs revolve around the planting of plums Language edit Main article Wuhan dialect Wuhan natives speak a variety of Southwestern Mandarin Chinese referred to as Wuhan dialect that differs slightly between the districts of Wuhan including Wuchang dialect in Wuchang District Hankou dialect in the Hankou districts Hanyang dialect in Hanyang District and Qingshan dialect in Qingshan District Cuisine edit nbsp Hot Dry NoodlesMain article Hubei cuisine Hubei cuisine is one of China s ten major styles of cooking With a history of more than 2 000 years Hubei cuisine originating in ancient Chu cuisine has developed a number of distinctive dishes such as steamed blunt snout bream in clear soup preserved ham with flowering Chinese cabbage and others On the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar many in Wuhan eat dicai zhǔ jidan 地菜煮鸡蛋 an egg dish which is supposed to prevent illness in the coming year 214 No need to be particular about the recipes all foods have their own uses Rice wine and tangyuan are excellent midnight snacks while fat bream and flowering Chinese cabbages are great delicacies 215 This attitude expressed in Hankou Zhuzhici reflects indirectly the eating habits and a wide variety of distinctive snacks with a long history in Wuhan such as Qingshuizong a pyramid shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves in the Period of the Warring States Chunbinbian in Northern and Southern dynasties mung bean jelly in the Sui dynasty youguo a deep fried twisted dough stick in the Song and Yuan dynasties rice wine and mianwo in the Ming and Qing dynasties as well as three delicacy stuffed skin of bean milk clarification needed tangbao steamed dumpling filled with minced meat and gravy and hot braised noodles reganmian in modern times Guozao 過早 is a popular way to say having breakfast in Wuhan and a part of the city s culture As a hub for land transport in China Wuhan has gathered and mixed together various habits and customs from neighboring cities and provinces in all directions which gives rise to a concentration of diverse cuisines from different places The most famous place to guozao have breakfast is Hubu Street 戶部巷 a 150 meter long street in the neighborhood of Simenkou 司门口 Along its short length one can find nearly all the traditional foods of Wuhan such as nbsp Mianwo a donut shaped snack from WuhanHot and dry noodles re gan mian 热干面 consists of long freshly boiled noodles mixed with sesame paste It is considered to be the most typical local food for breakfast Duck s neck or Ya Bozi 鸭脖子 is a local version of this popular Chinese dish made of duck necks and spices Bean skin or doupi 豆皮 is a local dish with a filling of egg rice beef mushrooms and beans cooked between two large round soybean skins and cut into pieces structurally like a stuffed pizza without enclosing edges Soup dumpling or xiaolongtangbao 小笼汤包 is a kind of dumpling with thin skin made of flour steamed with very juicy meat inside hence the name tang soup bao bun every time one takes a bite from it the soup inside is liable to spill out A salty doughnut or mianwo 麪窩 is a kind of savory donut with a salty taste It is much thinner than a common donut and is a typical Wuhan local food Shaomai wrapped in oil cake 油饼包烧麦 1 oil cake is filled with 4 pieces of heavy oil siomai and the heavy oil is required to put diced meat mushrooms bamboo shoots and black pepper in it Paste Soup Noodles 糊汤粉 It is a snack variety that uses round rice noodles as the main ingredient fish paste soup small shrimp and chopped green onion as accessories Opera edit Han opera which is the local opera of Wuhan area was one of China s oldest and most popular operas During the late Qing dynasty Han opera blended with Hui opera gave birth to Peking opera the most popular opera in modern China Thus Han opera has been called the mother of Peking opera 216 217 Sports edit nbsp Wuhan Sports CenterWuhan had a professional football team Wuhan that plays in the China League One Xinhua Road Sport Center the team s home stadium with a capacity of 32 137 is located in the heart of the city next to Zhongshan Park For the 2013 season Wuhan Zall was promoted to the top tier league of Chinese football Chinese Super League and relocated its home to Wuhan Sports Center Stadium a modern stadium with 54 357 seats located in the suburbs of the city However the team did not play well in the ensuing season and was demoted back to China League One as the 2013 season ended For financial and transportation reasons the team moved back to Xinhua Road Sport Center in 2014 In January 2023 the team folded Wuhan also has the Wuhan Three Towns in the Chinese Super League who won the title during the 2022 season for the first time upon promotion from China League One The Wuhan Gators are a professional arena football team based in Wuhan They are members of the China Arena Football League CAFL 218 The 13 000 seat Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium held the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship and was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup 219 The 7th Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan from Oct 18 to 27 2019 220 221 The city has been the venue for the women s tennis tournament the Wuhan Open one of the WTA s Premier 5 tournaments since 2014 Architecture editBridges edit Wuhan has eleven bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge also called the First Bridge was built over the Yangtze in 1957 carrying a railroad directly across the river between hills known as Snake Hill and Turtle Hill Before this bridge was built it could take up to an entire day to barge railcars across Including its approaches it is 5 511 feet 1 680 m long and it accommodates both a double track railway on a lower deck and a four lane roadway above It was built with the assistance of advisers from the Soviet Union The Second Bridge a cable stayed bridge built of prestressed concrete has a central span of 400 meters 1 300 feet it is 4 678 meters 15 348 feet in length including 1 877 meters 6 158 feet of the main bridge and 26 5 to 33 5 meters 86 9 to 109 9 feet in width Its main bridgeheads are 90 meters 300 feet high each pulling 392 thick slanting cables together in the shape of double fans so that the central span of the bridge is well poised on the piers and the bridge s stability and vibration resistance are ensured With six lanes on the deck the bridge is designed to handle the daily passage of 50 000 motor vehicles The bridge was completed in 1995 nbsp Second bridgeThe Third Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge also called Baishazhou Bridge was completed in September 2000 Located 8 6 kilometers 5 3 miles southwest of the First Bridge construction of Baishazhou Bridge started in 1997 With an investment of over 1 4 billion yuan about US 170 000 000 the bridge which is 3 586 meters 11 765 feet long and 26 5 meters 86 9 feet wide has six lanes and has a capacity of 50 000 vehicles a day The bridge is expected to serve as a major passage for the future Wuhan Ring Road greatly easing the city s traffic and aiding local economic development The Yangluo Bridge carries Wuhan s Ring Road across the Yangtze in the city s eastern suburbs connecting the Hongshan District with the Xinzhou District It was opened on December 26 2007 The Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the northeastern part of the city downstream of the Second bridge It is named after Tianxing Island Tianxingzhou above which it crosses the river Built at a cost of 11 billion yuan the 4 657 meter cable suspension bridge was opened on December 26 2009 222 in time for the opening of the Wuhan railway station It is a combined road and rail bridge and carries the Wuhan Guangzhou high speed railway across the river Skyscrapers edit nbsp Wuhan Greenland Center the tallest building in Wuhan since 2023See also List of tallest buildings in Wuhan The Yellow Crane Tower historically one of the tallest buildings in Wuhan is considered one of the Four Great Towers of China and was destroyed twelve times both by warfare and by fire The tower is classified as an AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration 223 At 475 6 meters 1 560 ft in height the Wuhan Greenland Center is the tallest skyscraper in Wuhan and in Central China as well as the eighth tallest building in China 224 The Wuhan Center the second tallest skyscraper in Wuhan was the tallest building in the city when it was completed in 2019 It retained the title until Wuhan Greenland Center surpassed it in 2023 225 Riverview Plaza is a 376 meters 1 234 ft tall skyscraper located in Wuhan It was completed in 2021 and is currently the third tallest building in the city The Phoenix Towers are proposed supertall skyscrapers planned for construction in Wuhan At 1 kilometer 3 300 ft high the towers would be among the tallest structures in the world when completed 226 Notable Wuhanese edit nbsp Li Na a former professional tennis player and two time Grand Slam champion serving at Wimbledon 2008 1st round against Anastasia Rodionova nbsp President Li YuanhongPolitics edit Li Yuanhong former President of the Republic of China 1916 17 1922 23 Wu Yi former Vice Premier and Minister of Health of the People s Republic of China 227 Business edit Wei Brian Chinese entrepreneurScience edit Chang Lin Tien seventh Chancellor of the University of California Berkeley 1990 1997 and a major founder of the U S National Academy of Engineering NAE Professor Tien is the first Asian to head a top university in the United States E Dongchen father of polar surveying and mapping in China Long Lehao Aerospace engineer and the chief designer of Long March expendable launch system rockets Weiping Zou Charles B de Nancrede Professor of Pathology Immunology Biology and Surgery at the University of Michigan American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Immunology CIMM Chairperson 2018 2019 Abstract Programming Chair for the American Association of ImmunologistsSports edit Deng Zhuoxiang professional football player scored many goals for Chinese national team in important games including 3 0 South Korea and 1 0 France in 2010 Fu Mingxia female diver four time Olympic Gold Medalist one in Barcelona 1992 two in Atlanta 1996 one in Sydney 2000 the only diver that has won gold medals at three Olympics as well as one of the very few divers in the world who is able to win world championships in both platform diving and springboard diving Gao Ling professional badminton player two time Olympic gold medalist Sydney 2000 Athens 2004 Hao Junmin professional football player played for Schalke 04 in the German League Hu Jia Chinese diver who won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men s 10 meter platform Mei Fang Chinese footballer playing for Guangzhou Evergrande in the Chinese Super League Li Na former tennis player champion of the French Open 2011 and Australian Open 2014 Li Ting tennis player Olympic gold medalist in women s doubles Athens 2004 Liang Patti Chinese American acrobat Qiao Hong female table tennis player two time Olympic gold medalist in women s doubles Barcelona 1992 Atlanta 1996 Rong Hao professional football player with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles Tang Jieli AIBA Women s Boxing World Champion 228 Xiao Hailiang Chinese diver Olympic gold medalist in 3 meter 9 8 foot springboard synchronized diving Sydney 2000 Zeng Cheng professional football player with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles Zhou Jihong female diver Olympic gold medalist Los Angeles 1984 the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in diving Tian Tao Olympic weightlifter Lu Xiaojun Olympic weightlifterArts edit Chi Li writer 229 Han Dong singer member of Dreamcatcher Jayne Meadows actress Laura Gao graphic novelist author of Messy Roots 230 Liu Yifei actress and singer Childhood friend with Yao Beina Paula Tsui singer who spent most of her singing career in Hong Kong Peng Xiuwen composer and conductor Sunny Xie singer and actress Tian Yuan singer and actress Wang Kai actor Wang Xiaosong artist who studied in Germany and is now professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou Xie Fang actress and author Xu Fan actress Yan Wenjing writer whose work is included as one of the literary selections on the Putonghua Proficiency Test Yang Caiyu actress Yao Beina singer during 2005 2015 known as the Voice of China spiritual leader of organ donation and charity 1981 2015 Yin Yezi actress Ying Chang Compestine a Chinese American author speaker television host and chef Yuan Hong actor Zhao Yue actress and singer member of SNH48 and BonBon Girls 303 Zhou Mi singer member of Super Junior M Zhu Yilong actorOther fields edit Saint Francis Regis Clet was martyred here Hua Mulan Ancient Chinese heroine whose story has been passed through ages in China and has been presented in a great number of books and motion pictures including the Disney animated feature Mulan 1998 Samuel David Hawkins American soldier in the Korean War who was captured by the North subsequently defected to China at the time of the Korean Armistice Agreement He worked as a mechanic in Wuhan until 1957 Wu Shuqing female revolutionary and militia leader during the Xinhai Revolution Xiong Bingkun zh 熊秉坤 the soldier who started and led the Wuhan Uprising in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which gave birth to the Republic of China Asia s first republic country Zhong Ziqi The best friend of Yu Boya an ancient Chinese musician whose musical composition Flowing Water was included on the Voyager Golden Record Ai Jingjing Chinese novelist Sister cities editSee also List of twin towns and sister cities in China Wuhan is twinned with 231 nbsp nbsp Wuhan nbsp Ōita nbsp Pittsburgh nbsp 5 nbsp 1 nbsp Galați nbsp Kyiv nbsp Khartoum nbsp 7 nbsp 4 nbsp Cheongju nbsp 6 nbsp Christchurch nbsp Markham nbsp Kopavogur nbsp Ashdod nbsp 3 nbsp Izmir nbsp Tijuana nbsp Saratov nbsp Concepcion nbsp Bishkek nbsp Chalcis nbsp Izhevsk nbsp 2 nbsp Entebbe nbsp Bangkokclass notpageimage Sister cities of Wuhan1 Manchester 2 Swansea 3 Essonne 4 Bordeaux 5 Duisburg 6 Sankt Polten 7 Gyor City Country Since nbsp Ōita nbsp Japan September 7 1979 nbsp Pittsburgh nbsp United States September 8 1982 nbsp Duisburg nbsp Germany October 8 1982 nbsp Manchester nbsp United Kingdom September 16 1986 232 nbsp Galați nbsp Romania August 12 1987 nbsp Kyiv nbsp Ukraine October 19 1990Khartoum nbsp Sudan September 27 1995 nbsp Gyor nbsp Hungary October 19 1995 nbsp Bordeaux 233 nbsp France June 18 1998 nbsp Cheongju nbsp South Korea October 29 2000 nbsp Sankt Polten nbsp Austria December 20 2005 nbsp Christchurch 234 nbsp New Zealand April 4 2006Markham nbsp Canada September 12 2006 nbsp Kopavogur nbsp Iceland April 25 2008 nbsp Ashdod 235 nbsp Israel November 8 2011 nbsp Essonne not a city but a department 236 nbsp France December 21 2012Izmir nbsp Turkey June 6 2013 nbsp Tijuana 237 nbsp Mexico July 12 2013 238 nbsp Saratov 239 nbsp Russia August 7 2015 nbsp Concepcion 240 nbsp Chile April 7 2016 nbsp Bishkek nbsp Kyrgyzstan November 15 2016Chalcis nbsp Greece May 11 2017 nbsp Izhevsk nbsp Russia June 16 2017Swansea 241 nbsp Wales January 31 2018Entebbe nbsp Uganda April 13 2018 nbsp Bangkok 242 nbsp Thailand November 16 2018And Wuhan has friendly exchange relationships with 243 City Country Since nbsp Kobe nbsp Japan February 16 1998 nbsp Hirosaki nbsp Japan October 17 2003St Louis nbsp United States September 27 2004 nbsp Atlanta nbsp United States September 9 2006Daejeon nbsp South Korea November 1 2006Gwangju nbsp South Korea September 6 2007Kolkata nbsp India July 24 2008Suwon nbsp South Korea December 5 2008Taebaek nbsp South Korea December 5 2008 nbsp Columbus nbsp United States October 30 2009 nbsp Bremen nbsp Germany November 6 2009 nbsp Port Louis nbsp Mauritius November 10 2009Cebu City nbsp Philippines August 19 2011 nbsp Yogyakarta nbsp Indonesia November 12 2011 nbsp Perm nbsp Russia September 10 2012 nbsp Chicago nbsp United States September 20 2012 nbsp Kosice nbsp Slovakia November 6 2012 nbsp Naples nbsp Italy September 18 2012 nbsp Moselle nbsp France July 16 2013 nbsp San Francisco nbsp United States November 21 2013Siem Reap Province nbsp Cambodia November 21 2013Biratnagar nbsp Nepal November 21 2013 nbsp Bangkok nbsp Thailand November 21 2013 nbsp Czestochowa nbsp Poland March 14 2014 nbsp Oliveira de Azemeis nbsp Portugal April 11 2014 nbsp Sydney nbsp Australia May 30 2014 nbsp Durban nbsp South Africa June 2014 nbsp Burlingame nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp Menlo Park nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp Cupertino nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp East Palo Alto nbsp United States June 23 2014Hayward nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp Millbrae nbsp United States June 23 2014Moraga nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp Morgan Hill nbsp United States June 23 2014Mountain View nbsp United States June 23 2014 nbsp Oakley nbsp United States June 23 2014Union City nbsp United States June 23 2014Betong nbsp Thailand June 25 2014 nbsp Salo nbsp Finland August 25 2014 nbsp Gavle nbsp Sweden August 27 2014Patan nbsp Nepal October 20 2014 nbsp Pattaya nbsp Thailand October 24 2014 nbsp Berane nbsp Montenegro October 24 2014 nbsp Cordoba nbsp Argentina October 24 2014 nbsp Liege nbsp Belgium October 29 2014 nbsp Lille nbsp France November 3 2014 nbsp Holbaek nbsp Denmark November 24 2014 nbsp Heraklion nbsp Greece December 11 2014Cape Town nbsp South Africa December 9 2014 nbsp Sao Luis nbsp Brazil April 29 2015 nbsp Varazdin nbsp Croatia May 7 2015 nbsp Kota Kinabalu nbsp Malaysia May 20 2015 nbsp Erdokertes nbsp Pest Megye nbsp Hungary July 4 2015Gold Coast nbsp Australia September 29 2015 nbsp Le Mans nbsp France November 1 2015 nbsp Southern Province nbsp Sri Lanka December 3 2015Galle nbsp Sri Lanka December 5 2015Mungyeong nbsp South Korea December 22 2015Daegu nbsp South Korea March 25 2016Tacoma nbsp United States April 5 2016 nbsp Lima nbsp Peru April 8 2016Tabriz nbsp Iran May 28 2016Marrakesh nbsp Morocco June 3 2016 nbsp Phnom Penh nbsp Cambodia July 11 2016 nbsp Dublin nbsp Ireland September 5 2016 nbsp Houston nbsp United States September 10 2016Jinja nbsp Uganda September 20 2016 nbsp Pucallpa nbsp Peru September 20 2016Maribor nbsp Slovenia September 23 2016Montego Bay nbsp Jamaica September 28 2016Victoria nbsp Seychelles October 17 2016 nbsp Kemi nbsp Finland November 25 2016San Nicolas de los Arroyos nbsp Argentina December 16 2016 nbsp Foz do Iguacu nbsp Brazil March 9 2017 nbsp Dunkirk nbsp France March 20 2017 nbsp Jihlava nbsp Czech Republic May 10 2017 nbsp Brest nbsp Belarus August 29 2017 nbsp Zhytomyr nbsp Ukraine November 14 2017 nbsp Marseille nbsp France November 20 2017 nbsp Herstal nbsp Belgium May 21 2018Fergana nbsp Uzbekistan October 14 2018Former Twinnings edit The city of Arnhem has unilaterally ended its twinning with Wuhan on July 21 2021 citing concerns about the Uyghur genocide 244 City Country From Until nbsp Arnhem nbsp Netherlands September 6 1999 July 21 2021Nature and wildlife editIn Chinese mythology the Baiji Yangtze River dolphin has many origin stories In one legend the Baiji was the daughter of a general who was deported from the city of Wuhan during a war During his duty the daughter ran away Later the general met a woman who told him how her father was a general and when he realized that she was his daughter he threw himself into the river out of shame The daughter ran after him and also fell into the river Before they were drowned the daughter was transformed into a dolphin and the general a porpoise 245 See also edit nbsp Asia portal nbsp China portalHistorical capitals of China List of cities in the People s Republic of China by population List of current and former capitals of subnational entities of ChinaReferences edit a b 图文 黄金十字架 写就第一笔 Sina March 30 2009 Archived from the original on March 4 2016 Retrieved February 21 2018 武汉历史上就是 九省通衢 在中央促进中部崛起战略中被定位为 全国性综合交通运输枢纽 九省通衢 The government of Wuhan Archived from the original on November 27 2012 Retrieved May 5 2019 a b Foreign News On To Chicago Time June 13 1938 Archived from the original on January 5 2012 Retrieved November 20 2011 a b c Jacob Mark May 13 2012 Chicago is all over the place Chicago Tribune Archived from the original on May 11 2013 Retrieved May 22 2012 a b 水野幸吉 Mizuno Kokichi 2014 中国中部事情 汉口 Central China Hankou Wuhan Press p 3 ISBN 9787543084612 全国各地级市人口排名 红黑人口库 a b c d 武汉市历史沿革 in Simplified Chinese www XZQH org August 6 2014 Archived from the original on February 10 2018 Retrieved February 10 2018 a b c 行政建置 in Simplified Chinese Wuhan Municipal People s Government January 8 2018 Archived from the original on October 17 2018 Retrieved October 17 2018 a b Wuhan Statistical Yearbook 2010 PDF Wuhan Statistics Bureau Archived from the original PDF on November 5 2011 Retrieved July 31 2011 p 15 Cox W 2018 Demographia World Urban Areas PDF 14th Annual ed St Louis Demographia p 22 Archived PDF from the original on May 3 2018 Retrieved June 15 2018 超1 7万亿元 武汉2021年GDP同比增长12 2 荆楚网 湖北日报网 News cnhubei com January 24 2022 Retrieved February 25 2022 2013中国人类发展报告 PDF in Chinese United Nations Development Programme China 2015 Archived from the original PDF on 29 November 2013 Retrieved 14 May 2014 The Chronology of the Living Fossil Metasequoia Glyptostroibodes Taxodiaceae A Review 1943 2003 PDF Harvard College 2003 p 15 Archived from the original PDF on March 6 2016 Retrieved January 25 2018 1984 In the spring Metasequoia was chosen as the City Tree of Wuhan the capital of Hubei Wuhan Lexico UK English Dictionary Oxford University Press Archived from the original on June 24 2021 Illuminating China s Provinces Municipalities and Autonomous Regions Hubei China org cn PRC Central Government Archived from the original on June 19 2014 Retrieved February 19 2018 a b Focus on Wuhan China The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service Archived from the original on December 12 2013 Retrieved February 10 2013 Zhao Manfeng 赵满丰 国家中心城市 National central cities usa chinadaily com cn Archived from the original on May 20 2018 Retrieved May 20 2018 a b MacKinnon Stephen R 2002 Remaking the Chinese City Modernity and National Identity 1900 1950 University of Hawaii Press p 161 ISBN 978 0824825188 An American in China 1936 39 A Memoir Archived from the original on May 12 2013 Retrieved February 10 2013 MacKinnon Stephen R 2008 Wuhan 1938 War Refugees and the Making of Modern China University of California Press p 12 ISBN 978 0520254459 a b The Coronavirus What Scientists Have Learned So Far a, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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