- Not to be confused with the unrelated province of Hebei
Hubei (Chinese: 湖北; pinyin: Húběi; Wade-Giles: Hu-pei; Postal System Pinyin:
Hupeh) is a central province of the People's Republic of China. Its abbreviation is
鄂 (pinyin: È), an ancient name associated with the eastern part of the province
since the Qin Dynasty. The name Hubei means "north of the lake",
referring to Hubei's position north of Dongting Lake.
Hubei borders Henan to the north, Anhui to the
east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the
south, Chongqing to the west, and Shaanxi to the northwest. The high-profile Three Gorges
Dam is located in Yichang, in western Hubei.
A popular unofficial name for Hubei is Chu (Chinese:
楚; pinyin: Chǔ), after the powerful state of Chu that existed here during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
History
By the Spring and Autumn Period {770 BC - 476 BC), Hubei was home to the powerful
state of Chu. Chu was nominally a tributary state of the Zhou Dynasty, and it was itself an extension of the Chinese civilization that had
emerged some centuries before in the north; but it was also culturally unique, and was a powerful state that held onto much of
the middle and lower Yangtze River, with power extending northwards into
the North China Plain.
During the Warring States Period (475 BC - 221 BC) Chu became the major adversary of
the upstart state of Qin to the northwest (in what is now Shaanxi province), 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 (in 278 BC) its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, which had fled eastwards, as part of Qin's bid for the
conquest of all China.
Qin founded the Qin Dynasty in 221
BC, the first unified state in China. Qin was succeeded by the Han
Dynasty in 206 BC, which established the province (zhou) of Jingzhou in what is now Hubei
and Hunan. Near the end of the Han
Dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, Jingzhou was ruled by
regional warlord Liu Biao. After his death, Liu Biao's realm was surrendered by his
successors to Cao Cao, a powerful warlord who had conquered nearly all of north
China; but in the Battle of Chibi, warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan drove Cao Cao out of Jingzhou. Liu Bei
then took control of Jingzhou; he went on to conquer Yizhou (the Sichuan Basin), but lost Jingzhou to Sun Quan; for the next few decades Jingzhou was
controlled by the Wu Kingdom, ruled by Sun Quan and his successors.
The incursion of northern nomadic peoples into northern China at the beginning of the 4th century began nearly three centuries of the division of China into a nomad-ruled (but increasingly
Sinicized) north and a Han Chinese-ruled south. Hubei, which is in southern
China, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the reunification of China by the Sui Dynasty in 589. In 617 the
Tang Dynasty replaced Sui, and later on the Tang Dynasty placed what is now
Hubei under several circuits: Jiangnanxi Circuit in the
south; Shannandong
Circuit in the west, and Huainan Circuit in the east. After the Tang Dynasty
disintegrated the 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several
regional regimes: Jingnan in the center,
Wu (later Southern Tang) to the east, and the
Five Dynasties to the north.
The Song Dynasty reunified China in 982 and placed most of Hubei into Jinghubei Circuit, a longer version of Hubei's current name. Mongols conquered China fully 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. The Manchu Qing Dynasty which had conquered China in 1644 split Huguang into the
modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan in 1664. The Qing Dynasty continued to maintain a
viceroy of Huguang, however; one of the most famous was Zhang Zhidong, whose modernizing reforms
made Hubei (especially Wuhan) into a prosperous center of commerce and industry.
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; this government was later merged into Chiang Kai-shek's government in Nanjing. During World War II the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by Japan while the western parts remained under Chinese control.
The construction of the Three Gorges Dam over the Yangtze River began in 1993 near Yichang. In the following years, authorities resettled millions of people from western Hubei
to make way for the construction of the dam.
Geography
The Jianghan Plain takes up
most of central and eastern Hubei, while the west and the peripheries are more mountainous, with ranges such as the Wudang Mountains, the Jingshan Mountains, the
Daba Mountains, and the
Wushan Mountains (in rough
north-to-south order). The Dabie
Mountains lie to the northeast, on the border with Henan and Anhui; the Tongbai Mountains lie to the north on the border with Henan; to
the southeast the Mufu
Mountains form the border with Jiangxi. The eastern half of the Three Gorges (Xiling Gorge and part of Wu Gorge) lies in western Hubei; the other half is in neighbouring Chongqing. The highest peak in Hubei is Shennong Peak, found in the Daba Mountains and in the forestry area of Shennongjia; it has an altitude of 3105 m.
The Yangtze River enters Hubei from the west via the Three Gorges; the Hanshui enters from the northwest. These two rivers meet at Wuhan, the provincial capital.
Thousands of lakes dot the landscape, giving Hubei the name of: "Province of Lakes"; the largest of these lakes are Lake Liangzi and Lake Honghu. The Danjiangkou Reservoir
lies on the border between Hubei and Henan.
Hubei has a subtropical climate with distinct seasons.
Hubei has average temperatures of 1 - 6 °C in winter and of 24 - 30 °C in summer; punishing temperatures of 40 °C or above are famously associated
with Wuhan, the provincial capital.
Administrative divisions
Hubei is divided into 13 prefecture-level divisions (of which there are 12 prefecture-level cities and 1 autonomous prefecture), as well as 3 directly administered county-level cities and 1 directly administered county-level forestry area.
The prefecture-level cities:
- Wuhan (Simplified
Chinese: 武汉市; Hanyu pinyin: Wǔhàn Shì)
- Shiyan (十堰市 Shíyàn
Shì)
- Xiangfan (襄樊市
Xiāngfán Shì)
- Jingmen (荆门市
Jīngmén Shì)
- Xiaogan (孝感市
Xiàogǎn Shì)
- Huanggang (黄冈市
Huánggāng Shì)
- Ezhou (鄂州市 Èzhōu
Shì)
- Huangshi (黄石市
Huángshí Shì)
- Xianning (咸宁市
Xiánníng Shì)
- Jingzhou (荆州市 Jīngzhōu Shì)
- Yichang (宜昌市 Yíchāng Shì)
- Suizhou (随州市
Suízhōu Shì)
The autonomous prefecture:
- Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture
(恩施土家族苗族自治州 Ēnshī Tǔjiāzú Miáozú
Zìzhìzhōu)
The 3 directly administered county-level cities are more accurately described as sub-prefecture-level cities:
- Xiantao (仙桃市
Xiāntáo Shì)
- Tianmen (天门市
Tiānmén Shì)
- Qianjiang
(潜江市 Qiánjiāng Shì)
The county-level forestry area:
- Shennongjia
(神农架林区 Shénnóngjià Línqū)
The 13 prefecture-level
divisions and 4 directly administered county-level divisions of Hubei are subdivided into 102 county-level divisions (38 districts, 24 county-level cities, 37 counties, 2
autonomous counties, 1 forestry area; the directly
administered county-level divisions are included here). Those are in turn divided into 1234 township-level divisions (737
towns, 215 townships, 9 ethnic townships, and 273 subdistricts).
See List of administrative divisions of Hubei for a complete list of county-level divisions.
Economy
Hubei is often called the "Land of Fish and Rice" (鱼米之乡). Important agricultural products in Hubei
include cotton, rice, wheat, and tea, while industries include automobiles, metallurgy, machinery, power generation, textiles, foodstuffs and high-tech commodities.
Mineral resources that can be found in Hubei in significant quantities include
borax, hongshiite, wollastonite, garnet, marlstone, iron, phosphorus, copper, gypsum, rutile, rock salt, gold amalgam, manganese and vanadium. The province's recoverable reserves
of coal stand at 548 million tons, which is modest compared to other Chinese provinces.
Once completed, the Three Gorges Dam in western Hubei will
provide plentiful hydroelectricity, with an estimated annual power
production of 84.7 billion kwh. Existing hydroelectric stations include Gezhouba, Danjiangkou, Geheyan,
Hanjiang, Duhe, Huanglongtan, Bailianhe, Lushui and Fushui.
Demographics
Han Chinese form the dominant ethnic group in Hubei. A considerable
Miao and Tujia population live in the southwestern
part of the province, especially in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.
Culture
People in Hubei speak Mandarin dialects; most of
these dialects are classified as Southwestern Mandarin dialects, a group that also encompasses the Mandarin dialects of most of
southwestern China.
Perhaps the most celebrated element of Hubei cuisine is the Wuchang fish, a freshwater bream that is commonly steamed.
Types of traditional Chinese opera popular in Hubei include Hanju and Chuju.
The Shennongjia area is the
alleged home of the Yeren, a wild undiscovered hominid that lives in the forested hills.
Transportation
Hubei plays an important role in China's transportation. Situated on the Yangtze
and Hanshui Rivers, which are important
waterways, Hubei also enjoys the convenience of railways linking Beijing to Guangzhou, Beijing to Kowloon, Shanghai to Wuhan, Wuhan to Chengdu, and
Zhicheng to Liuzhou, and of the airports in Wuhan, Yichang, Sanxia, Xiangfan and Shashi. National and provincial highways also
contribute to Hubei's economic development.
Tourism
Hubei is home to the ancient state of Chu, a local state during the
Eastern Zhou Dynasty that developed its own unique culture.
Chu (Hubei) culture mixed with other influences, ancient and modern, endows Hubei richly with tourist resources. Famous
attractions include:
In 1994, the ancient building complex of the Wudang Mountains was listed by UNESCO
as a World Heritage Site.
Miscellaneous topics
Professional sports teams in Hubei include:
External links
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