Yellow Crane Tower

The Yellow Crane Tower is the best-known building in Wuhan, and with Yueyang Tower and Prince Teng's Pavilion it counts among the three great towers south of the Yangtze. Sun Quan raised the first one in 223, as a watchtower on the river; the present tower was finished in 1985 on a site about a kilometre inland, five storeys and 51.4 metres high, with nine levels inside. The name was carried across China by Cui Hao's eighth-century poem, and the tower's own record of burning and rebuilding runs to twelve destructions. The old site by the water gave way to a trestle of the 1957 Yangtze River Bridge, and the Sacred Stupa on that ground is now the oldest complete building left from it.