This Hunan City Powers National Holidays for All Chinese

Yueyang Miluo is one of the important origins of China's Dragon Boat Festival culture. Every year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the racing dragon boats become a world-class spectacle. Miluo zongzi, neither sweet nor salty, cleverly resolves a long-standing north-south debate.

For most Chinese, Yueyang is a city immortalized in high school textbooks—the essay "Memorial to Yueyang Tower" made Yueyang famous nationwide.

Once known as "north connecting to Wu Gorge, south reaching Xiaoxiang," Yueyang, though remote, served as Hunan's gateway to the core cultural sphere. Today, it has become a sub-central city in Hunan. Over 2,500 years, Yueyang's significance in Hunan has never diminished.

Hunan is never short of mountains, surrounded by endless ranges on its east, south, and west, with only a gap in the north. Four major rivers originating from these mountains all rush toward this northern gap, eventually converging into Dongting Lake.

In Yueyang, Dongting Lake meets the Yangtze River. As China's second-largest freshwater lake, Dongting "holds distant mountains and swallows the Yangtze," exuding grandeur. Half of Dongting Lake is embraced by Yueyang.

How important is Dongting Lake? The "Hu" in Hunan and Hubei refers to Dongting Lake. It acts as a "relay station" for the Yangtze River, storing floodwaters during the rainy season and safeguarding both banks with its immense flood-retention capacity.

Dongting Lake is also Hunan's "switch," controlling the flow of water in and out of the province. It is the gateway for Hunanese leaving and outsiders entering, serving as Hunan's economic and cultural portal.

Thus, Yueyang has long been called the "Northern Gateway of Hunan."

Bordered by the Yangtze to the north and cradling Dongting Lake, Yueyang gathers the waters of Hunan's "Three Xiangs and Four Rivers." Statistics show Yueyang has 165 lakes and over 280 rivers, with the famous Miluo River almost entirely flowing through it.

Since ancient times, the Dongting Lake Plain has been a land of abundant fisheries and rice paddies, earning fame as a "land of fish and rice." During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Huguang region (Hunan and Hubei) gradually became the nation's granary, with the saying "When Huguang thrives, the nation is fed" replacing the earlier "When Suhu thrives, the nation is fed." Yueyang on the Dongting Plain played a pivotal role.

The people of Yueyang know best how to live with water. Junshan Island at the lake's center has over 80% forest coverage, while the East Dongting Lake National Nature Reserve is hailed as a "paradise for birds." In summer, 5,000 acres of wild lotus create Asia's largest natural lotus-viewing area; in autumn, lotus roots are harvested; in winter, a bowl of lotus root soup warms the hearts of Yueyang's people like no other "aquatic delicacy."

How did watery Yueyang become the heart of mountainous Hunan?

In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Sun Quan used Yueyang to pin down Liu Bei's forces across Hunan, highlighting its strategic importance. To review troops, Lu Su built the famed Yueyang Tower by Dongting Lake.

Yueyang, "north connecting to Wu Gorge, south reaching Xiaoxiang," was a military stronghold in wartime and a gathering place for exiled scholars and poets in peacetime. As luminaries flocked here, Yueyang gradually became Hunan's cultural hub.

The Dragon Boat Festival, celebrated for over 2,000 years, originated from the Miluo River in Yueyang. In 278 BCE, Qu Yuan, after a decade of exile in Yueyang, drowned himself in grief. This once-unknown river, memorialized by Sima Qian, Jia Yi, and others, became a celebrated river in Chinese culture. Yueyang thus became a must-visit destination for literati through the ages.

Yueyang Tower is the city's cultural pinnacle. Conservative estimates suggest hundreds of poems have been written about it. The tower also popularized Dongting Lake, making both key symbols of Yueyang's history.

A tower needs no height to be famous—literature suffices. Linfen in Shanxi also has a Yueyang Tower, standing for millennia yet unknown. In the Republican era, Hunan and Shanxi disputed the name "Yueyang," leading Shanxi's Yueyang County to rename as Anze, while Hunan retained the name—largely thanks to Fan Zhongyan's masterpiece "Memorial to Yueyang Tower." Ironically, Fan wrote it without visiting Yueyang; it was a "picture-based composition."

Junshan Island, "a green snail in a silver plate," faces Yueyang Tower from afar. A cultural island woven with myth and history, it is revered in martial arts lore as the headquarters of the Beggars' Sect, the world's top martial arts faction. Zhangguying Village, over 500 years old and dubbed "China's No. 1 Village," preserves intact Jiangnan residential culture from the Ming and Qing eras...

A millennium of cultural heritage shaped the romantic side of Xiaoxiang culture, yet Yueyang retains the unyielding Hunan spirit. In modern times, Yueyang became a cradle of China's revolution and the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. Pingjiang, a "small place" deep in the mountains, birthed the Pingjiang Uprising and produced 64 founding generals of the PRC, ranking among China's top four "general counties." Modern Yueyang embodies Hunan's essence.

Over 2,500 years of history represent an unbroken cultural legacy. This history and culture are not just Yueyang's past but also its foundation for the future.

Among the 14 prefecture-level administrative regions in Hunan, Yueyang ranks 8th in area and 6th in population, yet its GDP is second only to the provincial capital Changsha, dominating as Hunan's second-largest economy for over 20 years!

Transportation is Yueyang's secret weapon, unlocking the vital pathways for its economic development.

When it comes to waterway advantages, Yueyang stands out. The Yangtze River, hailed as the "Golden Waterway," has inland shipping capacity nearly equivalent to the nation's railways! Over half of Yueyang's raw materials and products rely on water transport. As Hunan's only riverside city, Yueyang Port handles the province's waterborne cargo, especially for the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan region, with 15 million tons of goods passing through annually. With water transport as its trump card, Yueyang pulls Hunan into the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Waterway advantages are a natural gift, while railway development reflects Yueyang's hard work. In the early Republic of China, the Yuehan Railway was initially planned to bypass Yueyang. Local scholar Li Chengyu petitioned tirelessly, successfully urging the government to reroute it, integrating Yueyang into modern transportation trends.

After the founding of the PRC, the north-south Jingguang Railway naturally passed through Yueyang, followed by the Beijing-Guangzhou High-Speed Rail and the Jinggang'ao Expressway. Railways truly connected Yueyang north and south. In 2018, Sanhe Airport opened, completing a water-land-air network that cemented Yueyang as a central China transportation hub.

Leveraging its logistical edge, "small but mighty" Yueyang confidently cultivates billion-dollar industries.

Of course, locals are even more optimistic about their cultural tourism. As a 2,500-year-old historic city, Yueyang possesses an innate confidence in its cultural appeal—like "natural beauty that cannot be hidden."

Compared to many major Chinese cities, Yueyang's urban core seems modest—no subways, ring roads, or viaducts, just a 10-minute taxi ride east to west and a population barely over a million. Yet, with rivers, lakes, ports, and roads, its economic strength is undeniable in Hunan.

As a premier southern indica rice hub and Hunan's top aquaculture city, Yueyang's bounty of fish and rice makes it a true "land of fish and rice."

Fishermen in Yueyang, Hunan, celebrate a bumper harvest.

No Yueyang feast is complete without fish. Fire-dried fish, pan-fried in tea oil, exudes rustic charm; salted and smoked with camphor leaves, cured fish lasts locals a hearty year.

Mention Yueyang, and crayfish and barbecue come to mind. In 2021, Hunan ranked third nationally in crayfish output, with Yueyang contributing nearly a third. Locals proudly brought their lobster restaurants to Changsha. Who in the capital doesn’t drool over Yueyang-style crayfish tails?

But to savor Yueyang’s all-day culinary marathon, start with a morning bowl of rice noodles. Toppings are a must: stir-fried pork with peppers, three-delicacies, or slow-cooked beef offal broth—flat noodles soak up flavors best. For refinement, try Dongting silver fish with egg crepe noodles; for boldness, opt for live crucian carp broth noodles; the ultimate? Xiangyin’s camphor-tree-port chili stir-fry toppings at ¥400 per jin—pure luxury.

Braised snacks and beer are barbecue’s classic mates. Guanyin Pavilion’s duck feet and Yueyang Tower beer haunt expats’ memories. Recalling "Dipo" under Baling Bridge, nights echo with laughter and clinking glasses, drowned out by Jingguang Railway trains roaring past.

Rivers and lakes breed a free-spirited vibe, grilled into down-to-earth warmth. In this small central city, humanity shines.

Cover photo | Tuchong Creativity