Changsha, The Capital City Of Hunan_Part 1

Note:- The information about the town and the province is sourced from internet

Alex from Changsha wrote to me about his home town…….

Navneet

Hello!

Nice to meet you. Let me first introduce myself. My name is ZhengXiao. I am from a placed called Changsha in Hunan. I am so sorry my English is not good, so I have used the online translator to convert the text written in Chinese. I hope you can understand the translated mail of this friend.

All the pictures were shared by him.

This seems to be the entrance to the Air Port

I came across your blog accidently. Thank you for your praise of China. China and India are ancient civilizations. They have a long history and cultural traditions.

In fact China too is still not counted among the developed countries. We are still a developing country. There are still many areas in which progress needs to be made, but I think it will improve and catch up with the developed nations.

I learnt from your blogs that you had gone to Wuhan. When I saw your blog post my heart was filled with excitement, because then you were very very close to Changsha, Hunan, my Changsha, where I live. I hope when you get to visit again this side, you will come to Changsha too. I am sending to you some pictures of Changsha. Although I haven’t personally taken these photos but they carry my feelings as well, because they show the beautiful scenery of Changsha.

Hunan’s primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and Yao peoples. It entered the written history of China around 350 BC, when under the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, it became part of the State of Chu. At this time, and for hundreds of years thereafter, it was a magnet for migration of Han Chinese from the north, who cleared most of the forests and began farming rice in the valleys and plains.

To this day many of the small villages in Hunan are named after the Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties Periods, when nomadic invaders pushed these peoples south.

During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, Hunan was home to its own independent regime, Ma Chu.

Hunan is located in the south-central part of the country, to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting. The province derives its name from “Hunan” from its location corresponding to Lake Dongting as Hunan means “south of the lake”.

Hunan is sometimes called and officially abbreviated as Xiāng , after the Xiang River which runs through the province. Xiangjiang River is the most important river in the region. It flows from south to north through the whole territory, the territorial length of the river in Hunan is of about 75 km. It flows towards north through the Changsha city dividing the east and west of the city into two parts.

Hunan borders Hubei in the north, Jiangxi to the east, Guangdong to the southeast, Guangxi to the southwest, Guizhou to the west, and Chongqing to the northwest.

Hunan and Hubei became a part of the province of Huguang until the Qing dynasty. The Hunan province was created in 1664 from Huguang, renamed to its current name in 1723.

Hunan became an important communications center due to its position on the Yangzi River (Changjiang). It was also on the Imperial Highway constructed between northern and southern China. The land produced grain so abundantly that it fed many parts of China with its surpluses. The population continued to climb until, by the nineteenth century, Hunan became overcrowded and prone to peasant uprisings. Some of the uprisings were caused by ethnic tensions like ten-years long Miao people rebellion of 1795-1806.

The Taiping Rebellion began to the south in Guangxi Province in 1850. The rebellion spread into Hunan and then further eastward along the Yangzi River valley. Ultimately, it was a Hunanese army under Zeng Guofan who marched into Nanjing to put down the uprising in 1864.

Hunan was relatively quiet until 1910 when there were uprisings against the crumbling Qing dynasty, which were followed by the Communist’s Autumn Harvest Uprising of 1927. It was led by Hunanese native Mao Zedong, and established a short-lived Hunan Soviet in 1927. The Communists maintained a guerrilla army in the mountains along the Hunan-Jiangxi border until 1934. Under pressure from the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) forces, they began the famous Long March to bases in Shaanxi Province. After the departure of the Communists, the KMT army fought against the Japanese in the second Sino-Japanese war. They defended the capital Changsha until it fell in 1944. Japan launched Operation Ichigo, a plan to control the railroad from Wuchang to Guangzhou (Yuehan Railway). Hunan was relatively unscathed by the civil war that followed the defeat of the Japanese in 1945. In 1949, the Communists returned once more as the Nationalists retreated southward.

A busy city street

The text below the pictures is written in Chinese, I can’t understand it but they are just beautiful.

There are lots of pictures, but the text he sent to me was in Chinese. Back then in 2014, I didn’t have the access to internet the way I have now, so I didn’t translate it.

This article has been recreated on 07-Feb-2026.

It was posted at Sulekha.com some time in 2014.

It was saved by me in my files on 28/06/2014

All these comments were received and replied through interaction on Sulekha.com, where I posted this blog in 2014

All Comments

navneetkumarbakshi / / 2 months ago

Hello Li,Sorry, I didn’t notice your comment earlier.I don’t understand what you mean by your comment. Maybe you wonder that how as an Indian can I write such things about China. I write about what I saw in China and I want the people of my country to learn from the progress of China. These pictures and many more that I post here are not of the places I have been to. These are sent to me by the people from all over China. You too can send to me the pictures of your home town and I will write a blog on that. You can write to me at 2220858872qq.comNavneet

Changsha, The Capital City Of Hunan_Part 1

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