Hunan
Hunan
湖南 | |
|---|---|
| Name transcription(s) | |
| • Chinese | 湖南省 (Húnán shěng) |
| • Abbreviation | HN / 湘 (Xiāng) |
.svg) Location of Hunan in China | |
 Interactive map of Hunan | |
| Country | China |
| Named for | "South of the lake" |
| Capital (and largest city) | Changsha |
| Divisions | 14 prefectures, 122 counties, 1,933 townships (2018), 29,224 villages (2018) |
| Government | |
| • Type | Province |
| • Body | Hunan Provincial People's Congress |
| • Party Secretary | Shen Xiaoming |
| • Congress chairman | Shen Xiaoming |
| • Governor | Mao Weiming |
| • Provincial CPPCC Chairman | Mao Wanchun |
| • National People's Congress Representation | 118 deputies |
| Area | |
• Total | 210,000 km2 (81,000 sq mi) |
| • Rank | 10th |
| Highest elevation | 2,115.2 m (6,940 ft) |
| Population (2020)[2] | |
• Total | 66,444,864 |
| • Rank | 7th |
| • Density | 320/km2 (820/sq mi) |
| • Rank | 13th |
| Demonym | Hunanese |
| Demographics | |
| • Ethnic composition | |
| • Languages and dialects | |
| GDP (2025)[3] | |
| • Total | CN¥5,530 billion (10th; US$790 billion) |
| • Per capita | CN¥84,583 (14th; US$11,900) |
| ISO 3166 code | CN-HN |
| HDI (2023) | 0.790[4] (15th) – high |
| Website | |
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| Hunan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.svg){kind=small} "Hunan" in Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 湖南 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Xiang | [fu˩˧ lan˩˧][5] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "South of the (Dongting) Lake" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hunan[a] is an inland province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, and Guizhou and Chongqing to the northwest. Its capital and largest city is Changsha, which abuts the Xiang River. Hengyang, Zhuzhou, and Yueyang are among its most populous urban cities.
With a population of just over 66 million as of 2020[update] residing in an area of approximately 210,000 km2 (81,000 sq mi), it is China's 7th-most populous province, the third-most populous among landlocked provinces (after Henan and Sichuan), the third-most populous in South Central China (after Guangdong and Henan), and the second-most populous province in Central China. It is the largest province in South Central China and the fourth-largest landlocked province.
Hunan's nominal GDP was US$790 billion (CN¥5.53 trillion) as of 2025, appearing in the world's top 20 largest sub-national economies, with its GDP (PPP) being over US$1.62 trillion.[6][7] Hunan is the 10th-largest provincial economy in China, the fourth-largest in South Central China, the third-largest in Central China, and the fourth-largest among landlocked provinces. Its nominal GDP per capita exceeded US$11,900, making it the third-richest province in South Central China, after Guangdong and Hubei.[6] As of 2020, Hunan's nominal GDP reached $605 billion (CN¥4.18 trillion),[8][9] exceeding that of Poland, with a GDP of US$596 billion, and Thailand, with a GDP of US$501 billion, the 22nd- and 25th-largest in the world, respectively.[10]
The name Hunan literally means "south of the lake".[11] The lake in question is Dongting Lake, in the northeast of the province. Vehicle license plates from Hunan are marked Xiāng (Chinese: 湘), after the Xiang River, which runs from south to north through Hunan and forms part of the province's largest drainage system. The area of Hunan was under Chinese rule as far back as 350 BC. Hunan was the birthplace of communist revolutionary Mao Zedong,[12] who became the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the founding father of the People's Republic of China. Hunan today is home to some ethnic minorities, including the Tujia and Miao, along with the Han Chinese, who make up a majority of the population. Varieties of Chinese spoken include Xiang, Gan, and Southwestern Mandarin.
Wulingyuan was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.[13] Changsha, the capital, is in the eastern part of the province and is an important commercial, manufacturing, and transportation center.[14] The busiest airports serve domestic and international flights for Hunan, including Changsha Huanghua International Airport, Zhangjiajie Hehua International Airport, and Changde Taohuayuan Airport.[15]
Hunan is the seat of the Yuelu Academy (later Hunan University), one of the four major academies over the last 1,000 years in ancient China.[16] As of 2023, Hunan hosted 137 institutions of higher education, ranking fifth among all province-level divisions of China,[17] and it houses five Double First-Class Universities of Hunan, Defense Technology, Central South, Hunan Normal and Xiangtan.[18] As of 2024, two major cities in Hunan (Changsha 23rd and Xiangtan 199th) ranked in the world's top 200 cities by scientific research outputs.[19]
History
[edit] | This section needs more citations. (February 2014) |
Hunan's primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and Yao peoples. The province entered written Chinese history around 350 BC, when it became part of the Zhou dynasty. After Qin conquered the Chu in 278 BC, the region came under the control of Qin, and then the Changsha Kingdom during the Han dynasty. At this time, and for hundreds of years thereafter, the province was a magnet for settlement of Han Chinese from the north, who displaced and assimilated the original indigenous inhabitants, cleared forests and began farming rice in the valleys and plains.[20] The agricultural colonization of the lowlands was carried out in part by the Han people, who managed river dikes to protect farmland from floods.[21] To this day, many of Hunan's small villages are named after Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin dynasty, Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern dynasties periods, when the north was mostly ruled by non-Han ethnic groups (Five Barbarians) and in perpetual disorder.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hunan was home to its own independent regime, Ma Chu. Han migration from the North continued under subsequent dynasties, with migrants fleeing from the invasions of the Yuan dynasty (Mongols). The Red Turban Rebellions against the Yuan dynasty first rose up in Hunan in the 14th century.
Hunan and Hubei became a part of the province of Huguang until the Qing dynasty. Hunan province was created in 1664 from Huguang and renamed in 1723. Hunan was regarded by early travelers as the "most conservative and virulently hostile to outsiders" yet was struck by the "keenness and stubborn deposition of the people". Prince Gong, the Qing Prince Regent called the people of Hunan "turbulent and pugnacious". During Griffith John's arrival at Hunan, he was stoned by a mob and as early as the 18th century, the Jesuits in China regarded Hunan as the "most impenetrable part" of China, a place "where persecution is most to be feared".[22]
Hunan became an important communications center due to its position on the Yangzi River. It was an important centre of scholarly activity and Confucian thought, particularly in the Yuelu Academy in Changsha. It was also on the Imperial Highway 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 19th century, Hunan became overcrowded and prone to peasant uprisings. Some of the uprisings, such as the ten-year Miao Rebellion of 1795–1806, were caused by ethnic tensions. The Taiping Rebellion began in Guangxi Province in 1850, then spread into Hunan and further eastward along the Yangzi River valley. A Hunanese army (Xiang Army) under Zeng Guofan marched into Nanjing to put down the uprising in 1864.
In 1920, a famine raged throughout Hunan and killed an estimated 2 million Hunanese civilians.[23] This sparked the 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 Long March to bases in Shaanxi Province. After the Communists departed, the KMT fought the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War. It defended Changsha until it fell in 1944. Japan launched Operation Ichi-Go, a plan to control the railroad from Wuchang to Guangzhou (Yuehan Railway). Hunan was relatively unscathed by the civil war that followed the Japanese defeat in 1945. In 1949, the Communists returned as the Nationalists retreated southward.
As Mao's home province, Hunan supported the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976,[citation needed] but it was slower than most provinces to adopt the reforms Deng Xiaoping implemented in the years after Mao's death in 1976.
In addition to Mao, several other first-generation communist leaders were from Hunan: Chinese President Liu Shaoqi; CCP Secretaries-General Ren Bishi and Hu Yaobang; Marshals Peng Dehuai, He Long, and Luo Ronghuan; Wang Zhen, one of the Eight Elders; Xiang Jingyu, the first female member of the CCP's central committee; Senior General Huang Kecheng; and veteran diplomat Lin Boqu. A more recent leader from Hunan is former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji.