Hubei Province is situated in the central part of China with the Yangtze River winding its way through the province. The Hanshui River, the Yangtze River's largest tributary, flows from northwest through the province. The land of Hubei, beautiful and fertile, boasts its long history, and rich heritage. Wuhan, Jingzhou, and Xiangfan the famous Chinese historical and cultural cities and four state protected scenic areas the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River. Mount Wudang, East Lake and Mount Dahongshan are all proud to be in Hubei, offering abundant natural beauties and historical interest.

Hubei province has six pillar industries, including high-tech, modern processing, raw materials, hydropower, culture and tourism industries and modern agriculture.

The province is located at the hub of the communication network from Beijing to Hong Kong, and Shanghai to Chongqing, in other words, from north to south, and from east to west.

Hubei has many excellent facilities and high-class accommodations of every type for the tourist. Wuhan is actually the name given to three closely linked cities: Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang. These three cities were physically connected in 1957 when the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, the first bridge across the Yangtze, was completed. The city's central location in China has made it an important hub of transportation by air, land and water making it convenient for the tourist to go to any other city both inside and outside Hubei. The Three Gorges Cruise Tour, Mount Wudang Taoist Cultural Tour and Ancient Three Kingdom Tour have already started here.

Dongpo Red Cliff

On the north bank of the Yangtze River, just west of Huangzhou Town, is the Red Cliff of Su Dongpo. On its summit are pavilions and halls dedicated to Su Dongpo (1037-1101), one of China's great poets. Having passed the imperial examinations at the age of 20, he held various important scholarly posts in the Northern Song capital of Bian (now Kaifeng) but fell from grace when he criticized new law reforms. After imprisonment, he was demoted to the status of assistant commissioner to the Huangzhou militia. He lived in considerable hardlife with a household of 20 members, tilling a few acres of land himself. The Red Cliff became one of this favourite haunts, and he and his guests, boating beneath the cliff, would compose poetry, drink wine, admire the moon and carouse all night long. In the Qing Dynasty this cliff was named Dongpo Red Cliff to distinguish it from the other red cliff that was the scene of a battle in the Three Kingdoms period (220-265). The Qing-dynasty halls contain examples of Su Dongpo's beautiful calligraphy, poems, essays and paintings carved on both stone and wooden tablets.

Shennongjia

Located in Central China's Hubei Province, Shennongjia (Shennong's Ladder for the area to commemorate a legendary emperor, Shennong, believed to be the forefather of traditional Chinese herbal medicine and agriculture) covers an area of 3,250 square kilometres. Approximately 1.7 million years ago, because of a glacier of the Quaternary Period, at least one-third of the earth's land mass was covered with snow and ice about 1,000 metres thick, resulting in a heavy loss of life. It fortunately escaped the destruction of the glacier and became a haven to plants and animals, which have long perished elsewhere.

Home to 2,400 species of plants and 500 kinds of animals, Shennongjia is a natural botanical garden and zoo. In Shennongjia, 29 plants generally referred to as "living fossils" are found, including the dove tree, ginkgo and fir. Endangered animal species, such as the snub-nosed monkey, leopard and South China tiger, live there.

Shennongjia is also a natural medicinal herb garden. At least 60 of its 2, OL medicinal herbs have proven effective in preventing and treating cancer ane other diseases. But what makes Shennongjia most mysterious is the possibl, existence of the legendary "Wild Man," known as "big foot" in the West. In the late Qing Dynasty, local chronicles recorded the existence of the "Wilt Man" in Shennongjia. Since then about 360 people, including scientists have claimed to have seen the creature. The most witnesses described "Wil< Man" as a 2-metre-tall creature with ape-like facial features and a body covere< with red hair. Standing on two legs, it has no tail and usually leaves larg' footprints on snow and in the fields. Although many people claimed to have seen the "Wild Man," nobody has ever· caught one, despite efforts bJ scientists. Some scientists say the creature may be an unknown primate.

Shennongjia was open to visitors in 1993. In 1996, it received 120,00( tourists. The number of tourists reached 500,000 in 2002. In 1990, Shennongjia was listed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific ane Cultural Organization's "Man and Biosphere" project.

An ideal place for tourists to start their journey to Shennongjia is Yichang, ~ city in Hubei. Yichang is the last stop for a downstream trip through thE Three Gorges, the most spectacular scenery on China's largest river, thE Yangtze River. Known for magnificent, tranquil and mountainous landscapes, the Three Gorges section of the river is 201 kilometres long, of which 140 kilometres flow through Hubei Province. From Yichang it takes about fiVE hours to reach Shennongjia by bus. The ideal time to visit Shennongjia is from May to October, staying there for one to four days. Shenlongjia now ha~ several well-furnished hotels where programme-controlled telephones arE available. In several towns in Shennongjia, there are amusement halls, cinemas, shopping malls and free markets where medicinal herbs, tea, root carvings and potted plants are sold. In Shennongjia, everything is easy for visitors to understand because there are no cultural relics. What permeates it is the naked beauty of nature-thick forests, streams, flowers, birds and fresh air. Autumn is the most wonderful season in Shennongjia. Adorned with plants and flowers of different colours, the mountains look like a large oil painting. On the bottom is the green grassland, above that is a large yellow arrow bamboo forest, and above the bamboo forest are forests embellished with unknown flowers.

Shennongjia is also known for its many inscrutable caves. In one grotto, which can accommodate at least 10,000 people, the temperature varies so much that visitors can experience the four different seasons. Glaciers fill another grotto even in summer. Some of the caves are connected with subterranean rivers and fish teem in the sulterranean rivers. Each year, soon after the first spring thunderstorm, shoals of fish rush out of them. For visitors, a trip to Shennongjia's specimen hall can be a kind of compensation. Covering an area of 120 square metres, the hall displays specimens of 400-plus animals, birds, fish, butterflies and insects, which exist in Shennongjia. They include the snub-nosed monkey, white bear, South China tiger, wild boar, black bear, jackal, white stork and golden pheasant. Also on display in the hall is a mosquito 40 millimetres long and 98 millimetres wide when its wings are spread. It is said to be the largest mosquito in the world.

For researchers and visitors alike, the primitive forests of Shennongjia spell too many mysteries closely linked with its geological changes.

Shennongjia has been listed by UNESCO as one of nature reserves for wildlife protection in a global programme, the "Human Beings and Biosphere. "

Pan Gu

Legend relates that Pan Gu (creator of the universe in Chinese mythology), who was born in the Kunlun Mountains, took up a broad axe and wielded it with all his might to crack open the dark egg. The light clear part of the egg floated up and formed the heavens, the cold, turbid matter stayed below to form earth. Pan Gu stood in the middle with his head touching the sky and his feet planted on earth. The heavens and the earth began to grow little by little every day, and Pan Gu grew along with them. After thousands of years, the sky was higher, the earth thicker, and Pan Gu stood between them like a pillar so that they would never join again. When Pan Gu died, his breath became the wind and clouds; his voice the rolling thunder. Pan Gu's one eye became the sun and the other the moon. His body and limbs turned into five big mountains and his blood formed the roaring water. His veins became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. The innumerable stars in the sky came from his hair and beard, and the flowers and trees from his skin and the fine hairs on his body. His marrow turned into jade and pearls. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all things on earth. Until Pan Gu's death, there were no human beings but only lords. The endless fights between lords enmeshed the whole world with evils. Monstrous floods came to wash all evils away and carried a big gourd that protected a brother Fuxi (a legendary ruler of great antiquity, the first of the Three August Ones , credited with the invention of hunting and fishing and the domestication of animals) and his sister Nliwa (a creatorgoddess who patched with stone blocks the holes in the sky made by Gonggong , the Spirit of Water, in a conflict with Zhuanxu , the Spirit of Fire) inside. They got married and gave birth to all the lords who then created human beings.