1.
Hubei
–
Hubei is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the Central China region. The name of the province north of the lake, referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The provincial capital is Wuhan, a major thoroughfare and the political, cultural. It borders Henan to the north, Anhui to the east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, the high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang, in the west of the province. The Hubei region was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures, by the Spring and Autumn period, the territory of todays Hubei was part of the powerful State of Chu. During the Warring States period Chu became the major adversary of the upstart State of Qin to the northwest, which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land, first its dominance over the Sichuan Basin, then its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, Qin founded the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, the first unified state in the region. Qin was succeeded by the Han dynasty in 206 BC, which established the province of Jingzhou in what is now Hubei, the Qin and Han played an active role in the agricultural colonization of Hubei, maintaining a system of river dikes to protect farmland from summer floods. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, the incursion of northern nomadic peoples into the region at the beginning of the 4th century began nearly three centuries of division into a nomad-ruled north and a Han Chinese-ruled south. Hubei, to the South, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the unification of China by the Sui dynasty in 589. After the Tang dynasty disintegrated in the 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several regional regimes, Jingnan in the center, Wu to the east, and the Five Dynasties to the north. The Song dynasty reunified the region in 982 and placed most of Hubei into Jinghubei Circuit, Mongols conquered the region in 1279, and under their rule the province of Huguang was established, covering Hubei, Hunan, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The Ming dynasty drove out the Mongols in 1368 and their version of Huguang province was smaller, and corresponded almost entirely to the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan combined. While Hubei was geographically removed from the centers of the Ming power, during the last years of the Ming, todays Hubei was ravaged several times by the rebel armies of Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng. The Manchu Qing dynasty which had much of the region in 1644, soon split Huguang into the provinces of Hubei. The Huangshi/Daye area, south-east of Wuhan, became an important center of mining, in 1911 the Wuchang Uprising took place in modern-day Wuhan, overthrowing the Qing dynasty and establishing the Republic of China. In 1927 Wuhan became the seat of a government established by left-wing elements of the Kuomintang, led by Wang Jingwei, during World War II the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by Japan while the western parts remained under Chinese control
2.
Daye
–
Daye is a city of eastern Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. Administratively, it is a city of Huangshi City. Before the adoption of the Hanyu Pinyin, the name of the city was often transcribed in English as Tayeh. As it is usually the case with county-level cities, Daye includes both a core and a fair amount of rural land in all directions, with smaller townships such as Dajipu. According to the Fifth Population Census of China, the entire city of Daye had 813,600 residents. The Daye Lake south of Dayes urban core is surrounded by parks and fishing ponds, for a traveler who goes on G316 from Wuhan toward the south-east, Daye appears as a border between the more urban and more rural parts of the province. Daye sits on the border of the heavily industrialized Wuhan/Ezhou/Huangshi metropolitan area, south of it. Daye is a city, a center of mining and metallurgy. According to archaeologists, copper mining and smelting was conducted at Dayes Tonglüshan Mine as early as the Spring and Autumn period, Tonglüshan Mine is located just southwest of the modern city, and now has a museum. Among the major employers is Huangshi Daye Non-ferrous Metals Co. Ltd, Daye was the junction of the Wuhan-Daye Railway and Daye-Shahejie Railway, which merged in 1989 to form the Wuhan–Jiujiang Railway. Huangshi Railway Station, which is the passenger station for the entire Huangshi metropolitan area, is located within Dayes administrative borders. It has fairly frequent service, with time to Wuhan being typically around 1 hour on a high-speed D-series train. Daye is served by the Wuhan–Huangshi Intercity Railway, part of the future Wuhan Metropolitan Area Intercity Railway, the new Daye North Railway Station, located north-east of Dayes main urban area, serves as that lines terminal. It has fairly frequent service to the Wuhan Railway Station, construction work is carried out to extent this rail line beyond Daye, this will become the Wuhan–Jiujiang Passenger Railway. Daye is also served by the China National Highway 106, Daye County existed on and off for centuries, as recently as the World War II period, it included much of todays prefecture-level city of Huangshi. This means that pre-1949 references to a location in Daye or Tayeh may refer to anywhere within todays Huangshi, Daye County was re-established on June 1,1962, on a rather smaller scale, as part of Huangshi City. On February 18,1994 Daye was converted into a county-level city, the speech of Daye and the adjacent counties farther south has been traditionally characterized as the Daye dialect, part of the Datong dialect group of Gan Chinese
3.
Yichang
–
Yichang is a prefecture-level city located in western Hubei province, China. It is the second largest city in the province after the capital, the Three Gorges Dam is located within its administrative area, in Yiling District. In ancient times Yichang was known as Yiling, There are historical records telling that in the year 278 BC during the Warring States period, the Qin general Bai Qi set fire to Yiling. In 222 AD Yichang was also the site of the Battle of Yiling during the Three Kingdoms Period, the imperial government set up a navigation company there and built wharfs less than 0.5 kilometres in length. Since 1949, more than 50 wharves have been constructed at the port so that its area is now over 15 kilometres long. In 1940, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang took place in the area, administratively, it is a prefecture-level city, its municipal government has jurisdiction over five counties, five urban districts, and three satellite county-level cities. It covers 21,084 square kilometres in Western Hubei Province, the Xiling Gorge, the easternmost of the Three Gorges on the Yangtze, is located within the prefecture-level city. Within the prefecture-level city of Yichang, the Yangtze is joined by a number of tributaries, including the Qing River, Xiang Xi, the central urban area of Yichang is split between several districts. On the right bank of the Yangtze are located Xiling District, Yiling District, the city area on the opposite bank of the river is included into Dianjun District. All these districts, with the exception of the central Xiling, Yichang has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, humid subtropical climate, with cool, damp and generally overcast winters, and hot, humid summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 4.9 °C in January to 27.7 °C in July, close to 70% of the annual precipitation of 1,140 mm occurs from May to September. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 24% in January to 49% in August, the city receives 1,568 hours of sunshine annually. Yichang Sanxia Airport is located in the Xiaoting District of Yichang City,26 km away from the city center and 55 km from the Three Gorges Dam site. The airport is located, which borders Yihuang Highway in the north, Long River Golden Waterway in the south. It connects the urban Xiling and Dianjun Districts, There are several ferry crossings as well. Yichang is an important river port on the Yangtze river, maoping Town, has an active passenger wharf as well. The Qing River in the part of the prefecture, with its cascade of dams, is an important waterway as well. Yichang is served by railway lines
4.
Yiling District
–
Yiling District is a district of the prefecture-level city of Yichang, Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. Created in July 2001, the district includes most of the former Yichang County, with the exception of Yichang center city, the land area of Yiling District is 3424 square km, population 510,000. Both Gezhouba Dam and the Three Gorges Dam are located within the district, the Xiling Bridge spans the Changjiang in the western part of Yiling District, connecting the towns of Letianxi and Sandouping on the northern and southern sides of the river. To add to the confusion, Yiling Bridge is not within Yiling District - rather, 宜昌市夷陵区政府网站 - Official site of the district government
5.
Xingshan County
–
Xingshan County is a county of western Hubei, Peoples Republic of China. It is under the administration of Yichang Prefecture-level City, the county occupies the mountainous north-western corner of Yichang prefecture, bordering on Badong County in the west and Shennongjia in the north. The highest mountains within the county are Mount Wanchao and Mount Wanfu, the county seat is in Gaofu town, this is the location that is simply marked as Xingshan on less detailed maps. Accordingly, some 20,000 residents had to be relocated from the flooded areas and it is officially part of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region. The county is divided into 8 county-level units,6 towns and 2 townships
6.
Changyang Tujia Autonomous County
–
Changyang Tujia Autonomous County is an autonomous county in western Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. It is under the administration of the city of Yichang. The county is located in the basin of the Qing River, the river is flanked by mountains on both sides, the tallest of which - the Tianzhu Mountain - is 2,542 metres tall. The river is dammed by the Geheyan Dam and the Gaoba Dam, the resulting reservoirs provide the main water transportation route throughout much of the county. Established in 1984 with an area of 3,412 square kilometres. The new Yichang-Wanzhou Railway crosses the northwestern part of the county, the China National Highway 318, and the newly constructed Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway run roughly parallel to the railway. Building the expressway in this required the construction of a number of tunnels and remarkable bridges
7.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Wuhan
–
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain at the intersection of the reaches of the Yangtze. Because of its key role in transportation, Wuhan was sometimes referred to as the Chicago of China by foreign sources. Holding sub-provincial status, Wuhan is recognized as the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational, the city of Wuhan, first termed as such in 1927, has a population of 10,607,700 people as of 2015. In the 1920s, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. At the 2010 census, its built-up area made of 8 out of 10 urban districts was home to 8,821,658 inhabitants, with a 3, 500-year-long history, Wuhan is one of the most ancient and civilized metropolitan cities in China. During the Han dynasty, Hanyang became a busy port. Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang and Wuchang, the latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD223, the Yellow Crane Tower was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River, cui Hao, a celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty, visited the building in the early 8th century, his poem made it the most celebrated building in southern China. The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts, under the Mongol rulers, Wuchang was promoted to the status of provincial capital, by the dawn of the 18th century, Hankou had become one of Chinas top four most important towns of trade. In the late 19th century, railroads were extended on an axis through the city. Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign-controlled merchant districts and these districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities. On October 10,1911, Sun Yat-sens followers launched the Wuchang Uprising, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei, in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1920s. S. As the battle raged on through 1938, Wuhan and the 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, in December 1944, the city was largely destroyed by U. S. firebombing raids conducted by the Fourteenth Air Force. In 1967, civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident as a result of tensions arising out of the Cultural Revolution. 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. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, and in the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port
9.
Huangshi
–
Huangshi is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. Its population was 2,429,318 inhabitants at the 2010 census,1,601,687 of whom lived in the area made up of 4 urban districts plus the city of Daye. Huangshi is located in southeastern Hubei province, along the bank of one of the major bends in the Yangtze River. It is located 100 kilometres south-east of Wuhan, and borders Jiangxi province to the south and its area was reported by the local government as 4,583 square kilometres, elsewhere, the number of 4,630 square kilometres was given. The terrain is mostly small mountains and hills, the tallest mountain is 7 Summit Mountain with an elevation of 860 metres above sea level. Huangshi is also located in a lake district between Hunans Dongting Lake and Jiangxis Poyang lake and has dozens of large lakes. Average annual temperature is 17 °C and precipitation is 1,400 mm, there are 264 frost free days. It snows between December and February, Huangshi has 4 districts,1 county, and 1 county-level city. More than 99% of the population belong to the Han ethnic group, according to Google Map there are 686.894 people in Huangshi, this refers, presumably, to Huangshis urban core, and excludes the far-flung Yangxin County, Daye, and Tieshan. Huangshis GDP for 2003 was 27.5 billion CNY and its proximity to Wuhan and location along major rail lines and the Yangtze River make Huangshi an important logistics, distribution, and transportation hub. Mineral resources are plentiful in Huangshi giving it the nickname The Southern Cornucopia, metals include iron, manganese, gold, copper, tungsten, molybdenum, zinc, lead, cobalt, silver, gallium, and thallium. Other mineral resources include germanium, indium, selenium, tellurium, sulfur, calcite, limestone, celestine, plaster, agriculture is also a major part of Huangshis economy. There are more than 3000 species of plants in Huangshi, many of them used for food, pharmaceuticals, other industries include metallurgy, textiles, construction materials, energy, light manufacturing, electronics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and food processing. The prefecture-level city is served by G45 Daqing–Guangzhou Expressway, G50 Shanghai–Chongqing Expressway, National Highways 106 and 316, the city has two Yangtze River crossings, the Huangshi Yangtze River Bridge and the Edong Yangtze River Bridge. Many of the trains traveling on the Wuhan–Jiujiang Railway between Wuhan and the points southeast make stops at the Huangshi and Yangxin stations. The Huangshi Station is located within the borders of Daye County-level city. The Yangxin Station is near Yangxin Countys county seat, Xingguo Town, although Huangshis main urban area is some distance away from the Wuhan–Jiujiang Railway mainline, it is connected to it by a dead-end branch, of considerable importance for the local industries. It runs all the way to Huangshis river port on the Yangtze, there was even a downtown passenger station on this branch, but, as of 2012, it was served by very few trains, and by 2015, was not in operation anymore
10.
Wuchang District
–
Wuchang District forms part of the urban core of and is one of 13 districts of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China. It was one of three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, and stood on the bank of the Yangtze River. The two other cities, Hanyang and Hankou, were on the left bank, separated from each other by the Han. The name Wuchang remains in use for the part of urban Wuhan south of the Yangtze River. Administratively, however, it is split between districts of the City of Wuhan. The historic center of Wuchang lies within the modern Wuchang District, which has an area of 82.4 square kilometres, other parts of whats colloquially known as Wuchang are within Hongshan District and Qingshan District. Presently, on the bank of the Yangtze, it borders the districts of Qingshan to the northeast and Hongshan to the east and south, on the opposite bank it borders Jiangan, Jianghan. The Wuchang fish is named after the town, in 221, warlord Sun Quan moved the capital of Eastern Wu from Gongan county, Jingzhou to È county, and renamed È to Wuchang. Later in the year Cao Pi proclaimed himself the emperor of Cao Wei, Sun Quan declared independence in the following year, and started to build forts and palaces in Wuchang. Sun Quan proclaimed himself the emperor of Eastern Wu in 229, Sun Hao, the emperor of Eastern Wu between 264 and 280, moved the capital back to Wuchang in 265. In 589, the Wuchang commandery was abolished and the Wuchang county was transferred to a new commandery named Ezhou, the Wuchang commandery was set up when È was renamed to Wuchang, and included six counties. In 223 the commandery was renamed to Jiangxia, and the capital of the moved to Xiakou. The name of the town was switched back and forth between Wuchang and Jiangxia several times in the following centuries, after 1301, the Wuchang prefecture, headquartered in the town, became the capital of Hubei province. At the end of the Qing Empire, the Wuchang Prefecture was the capital of the provinces of Hubei and Hunan. It was the seat of the government of Huguang, at the head of which was a viceroy of Huguang. Next to Nanjing and Guangzhou, it was one of the most important vice-royalties in the empire and it possessed an arsenal and a mint. The provincial government established ironworks for the manufacture of rails and other railway material, as the works did not pay under official management, they were transferred to the director-general of railways. Wuchang was not open to trade and residence, but a considerable number of missionaries
11.
Zigui County
–
Zigui County is a county of western Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. It is under the administration of Yichang City and encompasses the easternmost portion of the Yangtze River Gorges, the county seat of Zigui is now the town of Maoping, situated a few kilometers west of the Three Gorges Dam on the high southern shore of the river. The original Zigui town was upstream to the west and was abandoned and submerged under the waters of the reservoir in the early years of the 21st century. As it is common in China, Maoping is typically labelled as Zigui County or simply Zigui on most maps, a good view of the Three Gorges Dam, and of an ancillary dam further south, can be had from Maopings riverside parks. Most of Zigui is hilly or mountainous with basic farming and tea production, there are many small coal mines in the mountains, with the coal trucked to the river then loaded onto barges for shipping downstream. Passenger boats and ferries travelling up and down the river can dock at the large dock at Maoping. Frequent bus service connects Maoping with the city of Yichang to the east, there is also bus service to most towns in the county. 131 ancient Chinese hanging coffins found on side of 100m cliff near Three Gorges Dam, archived from the original on December 16,2015
12.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
