Changsha is the capital of Hunan Province. The history of the city dates back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC) and Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). It is also the centre of Huxiang Culture. Encompassing 11,819 square kilometres, the city is composed of five districts and four counties with a population of 5.82 million. The area and population of the city proper are 554 square kilometres and 1.51 million respectively. The city lies in the rich Xiangjiang Plain. The yearly average temperature is 17 .2'C. At the end of 1998, Changsha was named China's" excellent tourist city." The mainstay industries of Changsha are food, electronics, machinery, chemicals, building materials, textiles, pharmaceuticals and metallurgy. Traditional export products including Hunan embroidery, fireworks, pottery, porcelain and granite enjoy a good reputation in the international market. Four big high· tech industries including electronics, electronic and mechanical technology, new materials and biological technology have been established in Changsha.

In the city itself, Changsha has unique natural scenery and many places of interest. There are natural scenic spots including the Yuelu Mountain, the Xiangjiang River that runs across the city from south to north, the Shuilushou Island in the centre of the river, and the Liuyanghe River, which meanders to the Xiangjiang River in the northern part of Changsha. In the suburbs, there are tourist spots such as the Hongshan Holiday Resort, the Huitang Hot Spring, Mount Dawei National Forest Park, Mount Heimi, Moon Island, the Shiyan Lake Resort and Mount Daowu. Mount Yuelu is said to be the north point of Mount Hengshan, one of the five sacred mountains in China. Hangshan, stretching for 400 kilometres is in the Central China's Hunan Province and ranks among the five most famous mountains in China. Mount Hengshan has long been known as the mountain of longevity. Stone inscriptions left by emperors and scholars from different dynasties dot many legendary scenic spots, eulogizing the harmony of nature and man. Local villagers retain their own lifestyle in the midst of the chaos of modernity. Buddhist temples and Taoist palaces sit side by side. A grand praying ceremony for peace and stability was held on October 10, 2000.

A very famous scene at the mountain is the maple leafs in autumn, described by Du Mu (803-c. 852), a famous Tang-dynasty (618-907) literati (man of letters), as "redder than the flowers in early spring." The mountain is also renowned for its historical and cultural significance. It is a place where religions like Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism co-exist peacefully. There are tombs of Huang Xing (1874-1916) and Cai E (1882-1916), forerunners for Chinese democracy. It is also a place where Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and his comrades got together in the early parts of the political careers. The Mount Dawei National Forest Park is located in the eastern suburb of Changsha. The rich resource of oxygen there has earned the park the name of "the natural air conditioner." The park has hundreds of scenic spots, featuring mountaintop lakes, waterfalls, and streams and rich biological resources. Among the 2, 004 kinds of plants, 10 species are on China's priority list for protection. Famous archaeological discoveries include the Four-Goat Wine Vessel of the Shang Dynasty (16001046 BC), the Tomb of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) at Mawangdui and its well-preserved female from 2,100 years ago,' and the historical chronicles of the Three Kingdoms period (220-280). In addition, there are many other interesting spots, including the millennium-old Y uelu Academy, the Kaifu Buddhist Temple, the Tianxin Temple, the First Normal School where Mao Zedong started his career, and the site of the Xinmin Socl'ety.

Many places of cultural and historical interest, including the Mawangdui Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) Tomb, the Yuelu Academy , the Lushan Buddhist Temple, the Kaifu Buddhist Temple, the Aiwan Pavilion and the Yunlu Taoist Temple, have made the city an attractive tourist destination. As one of the first batch of "China's Excellent Tourism Cities," Changsha's charms also lie in its unique geographic conditions. It has grken mountains, clean waters, and beautiful islets. Dubbed the "Land of Rice and Fish (a land flowing with milk and honey)," Hunan is famous throughout the country for its agricultural produce.

Mawangdui

Mawangdui is the most famous of the archaeological sites; Three ancient tombs of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD 23) were discovered from 1972 to 1974 respectively. It was here, in one of these tombs, that the corpse of a woman was exhumed. Astonishingly her entire body, including the exterior and interior organs, was extremely well persevered. Inscriptions on burial objects showed that she was a noblewoman who lived about two thousand years ago. The tomb was discovered twenty metres underground beneath an inconspicuous mound. Nowadays, the whole burial chamber with all of its contents has been removed to a new museum built specially to house it in the city proper of Changsha. The museum is a two-storey building with an underground chamber. Here visitors can see a model of the tomb, photographs of the excavators and archaeologists at work and the fitted set of four coffins in which the body was found wrapped in multiple layers of silk and linen. Here too visitors can see the numerous burial objects unearthed from the tomb: elegantly designed lacquer ware, pottery and bamboo articles, musical instruments and silk fabrics, all in excellent condition. One silk garment measuring 128 centimetres in length weighs only 49 grams, so thin is the material. Displayed too is the charcoal and fine white clay which encased the sepulchral chamber and provided an air-and-watertight seal. It was this hermetic seal which helped keep the corpse so well persevered. Visitors can view the corpse itself, with its interior organs removed, through a sealed glass window. The temperature in the underground chamber is kept at minus 4'C ( 24 . 8"F ), and even while the chamber is open to visitors, the lights are dimmed to prevent ultra-violet rays from destroying the cells of the body.

Two archaeological discoveries in Changsha were recently said to be among China's top 100 archaeological discoveries, further enhancing Changsha's position as a famous historical and cultural city within China. One discovery was the Mawangdui Western Han Dynasty Tomb and the neighbouring Y uwang King Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 23). The other discovery was the Zoumalou Bamboo Annals.

The listing of Mawangdui Tomb in the top 100 was because of the richness of its relics. The discovery of the tomb is an event as significant as finding the terra cotta soldiers in Xi'an. The relics include lacquer works, a 49-gram silk garment as thin as cicada's wings, a T-shaped silk painting and a well preserved female corpse, the spouse of the prime minister of the Changsha Kingdom, indicating the highest preservation techniques in the world some 2,000 years ago. In addition, silk books on astronomy, Taoism, pharmaceuticals and geology are strong evidence of Chinese academic achievements in the Western Han Dynasty.

The Zoumalou Bamboo Annals were exhumed at a construction site in Changsha. Consisting of 170,000 bamboo sheets, they surpassed the total amount of bamboo annals discovered in other places in China. Consisting mainly of documents recording events in South China in a period 222 to 420, the discovery was a surprise to historians and archaeologists interested in the political and economic development of this period, which left insufficient evidence.

No 1 Normal School of Hunan Province

Outside the old south gate is the No 1 Normal School of Hunan Province where Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976) studied and worked for about seven years. On the wall of the main school building is the school's name written in Mao Zedong's calligraphy. He was a student here in the period 1913 to 1918. From 1920 to 1921, he worked here as a teacher of Chinese and as the headmaster of the primary school affiliated with it. The old school buildings were destroyed by fire in 1938. The present ones were reconstructed on the model of the old. Visitors can have a look at the classroom where Mao Zedong once studied, the room in which he gave his lectures to workers in the evenings, the house where he lived and the well from which he drew water for cold baths every day, all four seasons of the year. In one of the exhibition rooms, visitors can find a book on ethics which Mao Zedong read while he was at the school. The pages are crammed with his margin notes. Someone counted the words in them and found there are more than twelve thousand-a testimony to young Mao Zedong's diligence.