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Hubei, with the provincial capital is Wuhan, lies in the middle Yangtze River valley, derived its name
from its location north of the Dong-Ting Lake. It lies north of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) and is bordered by
Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hunan provinces and Chongqing municipality.
It is also known as the ‘thoroughfare of nine provinces’: with the Yangtze River flowing from
west to east and the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway running from north to south, Hubei is located right in the middle of the
country's main water and land transport artery.
In the 1st millennium BC it was ruled by the Zhou dynasty, and it became part of the Chinese empire
during the Han dynasty. Until the reign of Kangxi, Hubei and Hunan formed one province; they were divided in the mid
17th century.
The area was the scene of battles
after the 1850 Taiping Rebellion. The revolution of 1911 began in Hubei.
It was heavily bombed during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45. Restoration began after the
communist Chinese takeover. In addition to agricultural production, Hubei has important heavy industrial production.
It has an area of 185,900 square kilometres and a population of 56,540,000.
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Climate: Hubei has a sub-tropical monsoonal climate, with distinct contrast between the eastern
plain and the western mountainous area.
It has a
mean annual temperature of 15º-17ºC together with humid weather in the height of summer. With its absolute maximum
temperature exceeding 40ºC, Wuhan is one of the hottest places in China. The mean annual precipitation increases from
800 millimetres in the north-west to 1,500 millimetres or more in the south-east.
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Ancient forts in Hubei province |
Geography: With mountains in the west, north and east and low, humid plains in the central south,
Hubei is like a basin with a somewhat irregular shape and can be divided into four geographical zones:
A. The
Jianghan Plain in the central south forms part of the Lianghu Plain together with the Dong-Ting Lake Plain of Hunan
Province. Low and flat and criss-crossed by rivers and lakes, it is the major farming area of the province;
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Walled fortifications in Hubei |
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B. The western Hubei mountainous area includes the Wudang, Jingshan, Daba and Wushan
Mountains. Its main peak, the 3,053-meter Dashennongjia, is the highest peak in central China. A primeval forest area
known as the ‘green Treasure-house’, it teems with animals and plants;
C. The north-eastern Hubei hilly area
on the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border consists mainly of the Tongbai and Dabei ranges and is the watershed of the Huaihe and
Yangtze rivers;
D. The south-eastern Hubei hilly area includes the northern sloping foothills of the Mufu
Mountains.
Hubei has more than 1,000 rivers, with
the Yangtze River serving as the backbone into which its tributaries flow from two directions to form the single Yangtze
River System. Hubei has more lakes than any other province in China, with most of them in the Jianghan Plain. The
best-known lakes are Hong, Liangzi and Changhu lakes.
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