Wuhan, described as the ‘Homeland of White Clouds and Yellow Crane’, is one of China’s largest cities and the terminus of the Yangtze Cruise from Chongqing. The Yangtze River and the Han River join here, dividing this Hubei’s energetic capital city into three towns: Hankou, Hanyang and Wuchang.

Hankou, the largest of Wuhan’s districts, was once more than a minor fishing harbor on the northern banks of the Yangtze. But deals struck at the end of the 2nd Opium War saw it opened to the world as a treaty port in 1861, and the colonial powers lost no time in building a grandiose concession. Owing to its exclusive foreign connections, central Hankou was almost leveled during the nationwide 1911 uprisings against the Qing, and later, rail workers leading the Communist-inspired 1923 strike were massacred in Hankou by the Nationalist warlord Wu Peifu. In 1937 the Kuomintang, evicted from Nanjing by the Japanese, briefly established a national government in town before being forced farther west.

Today, Hankou is the city’s prosperous business center. The historical buildings in Hankou, all with european architectural styles, including the former consulates of the United States and Germany, and business offices of Citibank and HSBC, are well preserved and sightworthy.

Hanyang is the smallest of Wuhan’s districts. Settled as far back as 600 AD, Hanyang remained insignificant until the late nineteenth century when the far-sighted viceroy, Zhang Zhidong, built the country’s first large-scale iron and steel foundry as part of the ‘Self-strengthening Movement’ - a last-ditch effort to modernize China during the twilight years of the Qing dynasty. Hanyang remainsWuhan ’s principal manufacturing sector, but there are also a couple of worthwhile sights hidden away here, such as Tortoise Hill (Gui Shan), Qingchuan Pavilion and Guiyuan Temple.

Wuchang, on the right bank of the Yangtze, is historically the most important of the three districts. The walled capital of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, Tang rulers later made the city a major port which, under the Mongols, became the administrative center of a vast region covering present-day Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces. Until 1911, however, the city had sidestepped the mainstream of Chinese history, but on October 10 that year a bomb exploded prematurely at the headquarters of a revolutionary group planning to protest against the politics behind the construction of the Hankou-Chongqing rail line. The police moved in and a pitched battle ensued, starting the nationwide rebellion which toppled the Qing dynasty and saw the formation of a republican government under Sun Yatsen in Nanjing the following year. Being a provincial political center, Wuchan has few shops, but the East Lake Park, a natural expanse of greenery and water, is a good place to visit.

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