Yueyang sits at the northeastern corner of Hunan, where the Xiang River finishes its run into Dongting Lake and the Yangtze slides past to the north. The site has been inhabited for over three thousand years, and under the Three Kingdoms it became a military prefecture; its walled town guarded the lake outlet, and in 1899 it opened as a treaty port. Its fortunes still come from water: Chenglingji, at the junction of lake and river, ranks among the Yangtze's great foreign-trade ports and has handled over a hundred million tonnes of cargo in a year, and Yueyang remains Hunan's only international trade port city. Its economy stands second in the province after Changsha. Two things draw travellers — the tower on the old west gate, and the lake itself, with Junshan Island set in the middle of the water.
Dongting Lake is a Yangtze flood basin that four Hunan rivers fill with water and silt, and its shoreline has been moving for centuries. These sections follow the rivers, the drowned and reclaimed land, and the dikes and reserves that manage the lake today.
Yueyang Tower is a wooden pavilion on an old city wall, but its real monument is the 360-character essay written for it in 1046. Here is the building, the essay that made it famous, and the fires and rebuildings it survived.
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Junshan Island in Dongting Lake holds seventy-two peaks, a goddess legend, and the tea that was once a Tang imperial tribute. This is the island, its garden of shrines and bamboo, and what it offers a visitor now.
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At Miluo, the poet Qu Yuan walked into the river in 278 BC, and the boats that went after him became dragon boat racing. The story, the races and the festival that now fills the national calendar begin on this water.
ReadA three-tiered wooden tower on Yueyang's old west gate wall, made nationally famous by Fan Zhongyan's 1046 essay.
A 0.96-square-kilometre island of 72 peaks in Dongting Lake, named for two river goddesses and famous for Silver Needle tea.
China's second-largest freshwater lake, a seasonal Yangtze flood basin fed by four rivers and famous as the birthplace of dragon boat racing.
The county-level city on the river where Qu Yuan drowned in 278 BC, honoured as the birthplace of dragon boat culture.
