Yichang
Three Gorges Dam
The dam and Zigui’s moved town reveal how engineering changed both the Yangtze and life on its banks.
A province shaped by two rivers
Hubei.
Where Rivers Open Into Stories
The Yangtze and the Han give Hubei two ways in. At Wuhan, river poetry meets a city’s breakfast tables. Upstream lie the cliffs and changed shores of the Three Gorges; along the Han are Xiangyang’s walls and the mountain buildings of Wudang. Bronze bells connect a Suizhou tomb with a Wuhan museum, while the Jianghan Plain and Shennongjia’s forests open other rhythms of life.
Yellow Crane Tower
At Yellow Crane Tower, poems of departure turn a view of the Yangtze into an entrance to Wuhan and the wider province.
Explore this placeBegin with the classics
Choose a direction: the Yangtze’s gorges, the Han River’s cities, mountain architecture or forest habitats.
Jingzhou, Hubei
Jingzhou Ancient City
Walls, gates and the memory of Guan Yu introduce different layers of Jingzhou’s past.
Xiangyang
Xiangyang Ancient City
The Han River runs between Xiangyang and Fancheng, giving the city’s walls their strategic setting.
Shiyan
Mount Wudang
Bronze architecture, cliffside shrines and wooded paths make the mountain terrain part of a Daoist world.
Shennongjia
Shennongjia
In western Hubei, forests change with height and sustain a remarkable range of mountain habitats.
Look a little closer
Begin with a sound, a morning meal or a poem, then follow the places that give each story its shape.
From the journal
Sixty-Five Bells, More Than One Voice
The bells of Marquis Yi connect a tomb in Suizhou with Wuhan’s Hubei Provincial Museum and the sound of an ancient court.
From the journal
Wuhan Begins With Breakfast
Hot dry noodles and the small food stalls of Wuchang introduce guozao, Wuhan’s name for the morning meal.
From the journal
A Poet Makes Another Red Cliff
Su Shi’s years in Huangzhou joined a river cliff to the Red Cliff rhapsodies, leaving a literary place distinct from Chibi’s battlefield memorials.
Keep exploring
Choose a city: start with its highlights or continue reading in the full article collection.
Wuhan
Three historic towns meet at the Han–Yangtze confluence, with river landmarks, breakfast culture and remarkable museum collections.
All articlesYichang
At Sandouping, the Three Gorges Dam connects power generation and navigation with a reservoir that changed the river and its settlements. At Sanyu Cave near Yichang, a Tang outing and the later memory of the Su family turn a cliffside chamber into a literary place.
All articlesXiangyang
Xiangyang’s walls, the river crossing to Fancheng and the story of Lady Han reveal several periods of defence and remembrance. At Mi Fu’s shrine in Fancheng, courtyards and carved calligraphy preserve the reputation of a Song artist through later acts of copying and remembrance.
All articlesShiyan
On Wudang Mountain, the Golden Hall and the sequence of Daoist buildings make mountain terrain part of an architectural world. At Xuetangliangzi in Shiyan’s Yunyang District, ancient human skulls make a river terrace a place of continuing research into human evolution.
All articlesJingzhou, Hubei
Jingzhou’s surviving city wall and its remembrance of Guan Yu bring built defences and Three Kingdoms storytelling into different layers of one city. At Jingzhou Museum, a painted wooden drum support makes the sound-world and animal imagery of Chu visible in lacquer and carved forms.
All articlesJingmen
Qujialing in Jingmen introduces early farming through excavated settlement remains, pottery and the relationship between cultivation and water.
All articlesSuizhou, Hubei
At Leigudun in Suizhou, Marquis Yi’s tomb places the famous bells within a burial containing instruments, vessels and a ruler’s ordered world. At Lishan near Suizhou, the tradition of Yandi Shennong gives agriculture a remembered ancestor, alongside a region with its own archaeological past.
All articlesXiantao
The former Mianyang, where lotus root, steaming techniques and local crafts give the river plain a recognisable cultural life.
All articlesQianjiang, Hubei
In Qianjiang, crayfish farming and rice–aquaculture systems connect the waterlogged plain with a distinctive modern food economy.
All articlesTianmen, Hubei
A city of the Jianghan Plain with Lu Yu’s memory, Shijiahe archaeology and a distinctive tradition of sugar sculpture.
All articlesHuanggang
Su Shi’s years in Huangzhou joined a river cliff to the Red Cliff rhapsodies, leaving a literary place distinct from Chibi’s battlefield memorials. In Qichun, Li Shizhen’s life and the Compendium of Materia Medica connect local plant knowledge with a long work of collecting and comparison.
All articlesXianning
The battle of 208 helped shape the Three Kingdoms world; Chibi’s memorial landscape and Huangzhou’s poetry later carried its name in different directions. Jiugong Mountain in Tongshan brings a highland lake, wooded slopes and the memory of Daoist practice into one southern Hubei landscape.
All articlesXiaogan
A region of the Han River plain and northern hills, with stories of filial devotion and local performance traditions.
All articlesHuangshi
Around Daye and Huangshi, Tonglüshan’s ancient copper workings and a modern open-pit iron mine reveal different eras of extraction.
All articlesEzhou
Ezhou’s connection with Sun Quan explains an older use of the name Wuchang, alongside a lake country remembered through its fish.
All articlesShennongjia
Western Hubei’s forestry district, with mountain habitats, exceptional plant diversity and golden snub-nosed monkeys.
All articlesPhoto credits and rights
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The Yellow Crane Tower across the lake, with the White Cloud Pagoda rising beyond the trees.Josep Panadero / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Three Gorges Dam: the dam wall and the upstream spillway piers across the misty reservoir, a barge passing.Fxqf / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Jingzhou Ancient City: the Binyang Tower above the arched gateway in the wall.Fxqf / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Xiangyang ancient city wall: the crenellated brick rampart rising above the grass.Fxqf / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Misty forested peaks on Mount Wudang, with a temple roof and a path winding among the trees.Unknown / Public domain · Public domain Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Shennongjia: a winter road through the snow-covered forest of the Shennongjia reserve.Liuxingy / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗