英文介绍武汉有关武汉的信息.doc

WuhanWuhan (simplified Chinese: 武汉; traditional Chinese: 武漢; pinyin: Whàn; Mandarin pronunciation: wuxan Listen (help·info) is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in central China. It lies at the east of Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han River. Arising out of the conglomeration of three boroughs, Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, Wuhan is known as "the nine provinces' leading thoroughfare" it is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city. The city of Wuhan, first termed as such in 1927, has a population of approximately 9,100,000 people (2006), with about 6,100,000 residents in its urban area. In the 1920s, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang (KMT) government led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek, now Wuhan is recognized as the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational and transportation center of central China.HistoryThe area was first settled more than 3,000 years ago. During the Han Dynasty, Hanyang became a fairly busy port. In the 3rd century AD one of the most famous battles in Chinese history and a central event in the Romance of the Three Kingdomsthe Battle of Red Cliffstook place in the vicinity of the cliffs near Wuhan. Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang (AD 206) and Wuchang (AD 223). The latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD 223, the Yellow Crane Tower (黄鹤楼) was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River. Cui Hao, a celebrated poet of Tang Dynasty, visited the building in the early 8th century; his poem made the building the most celebrated building in southern China. The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts (especially poetry) and for intellectual studies. Under the Mongol rulers (Yuan Dynasty), Wuchang was promoted to the status of provincial capital. By approximately 300 years ago, Hankou had become one of the country's top four trading towns.Wuhan Custom House, opened in 1862In the late 19th century railroads were extended on a north-south axis through this city, which then became an important transshipment point between rail and river traffic. At this time foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into various foreign controlled merchant districts. These districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities.In 1911, Sun Yat-sen's followers launched the Wuchang Uprising that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei, in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1920s.In 1938, Wuhan and the surrounding region became the battlefield of the Battle of Wuhan, a major conflict in the Second Sino-Japanese War. After being taken by the Japanese in 1938, Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China. In December 1944, the city was largely destroyed by U.S. firebombing raids conducted by the Fourteenth Air Force. In 1967, civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident as a result of tensions arising out of by the Cultural Revolution.The city has been subject to numerous devastating floods, which are supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam. That project is set to be completed in 2021.HistoryOpening Hankou as a Trading PortDuring the Second Opium War (known in the West as the Arrow War, 18561860), the Government of Qing Dynasty was defeated by the western powers and signed the Treaties of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking, which stipulated eleven cities or regions (including Hankou) as trading ports. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, led four warships up the Yangtze River in Wuhan to collect the information needed for opening the trading port in Wuhan. And in the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port. On the basis of the Convention of Peking, Harry Parkes concluded the Hankou Lend-Lease Treaty with Guan Wen, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei. It brought an area of 30.53 square kilometers along the Yangtze River (from Jianghan Road to Hezuo Road today) to become a British Concession and permitted Britain to set up their consulate in the British Concession. Thus, Hankou became an open trading port.edit Hubei under Zhang ZhidongIn the fifteenth year of Guangxu Period (1889) of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong was transferred from Guangdong to be the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei. By 1906, he had governed Hubei for 17 years. During this period, he elucidated the theory of “Chinese learning as the basis, Western learning for application, known as the ti-yong ideal. He set up many heavy industries, founded Hanyang Steel Plant, Daye Iron Mine, Pingxiang Coal Mine and Hubei Arsenal and set up local textile industries, boosting the flourishing modern industry in Wuhan. Meanwhile, he initiated educational reform, opened dozens of modern educational organizations successively, such as Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) Academy of Classical Learning, Civil General Institute, Military General Institute, Foreign Languages Institute and Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) General Normal School, and selected a great many students for study overseas, which well promoted the development of Chinas modern education. Furthermore, he trained modern military and organized a modern army including a zhen and a xie (both zhen and xie are military units in the Qing Dynasty) in Hubei. All of these laid a solid foundation for the modernization of Wuhan.Yellow Crane Toweredit Wuchang UprisingOn October 10 of the third year of Xuantong Period of the Qing Dynasty (1911), an armed uprising broke out in Wuchang. Before uprising, with the purpose of overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty, bourgeois revolutionaries conducted deep and wide propaganda and mobilization and founded various revolutionary organizations in Wuhan. In earlier September 1911, the Qing Government moved part of the Hubei new army to Sichuan for suppressing the peoples uprising there, which made a good chance for the uprising in Wuhan. On September 14 Literature Society and gongjinhui, the two greatest revolutionary organizations in Hubei, jointly founded the uprising headquarters in Wuchang and decided to rise up. On the morning of October 9 the bomb at the office of the political arrangement exploded accidentally and unfortunately, and the uprising proclamation, beadroll and official seal fell into the hands of Rui Cheng, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei, who demolished the uprising headquarters in Wuchang the same day, and decided to raid the revolutionaries according to the beadroll. At this critical moment, the conductors from the basal backbones of revolutionary organizations contacted each other secretly and made a decision of immediate uprising. On the night of 10th, the revolutionaries fired to rise in revolt at the engineering barracks of new army, and then led on the new army of all barracks to rise up successively. Under the guidance of Wu Zhaolin, Cai Jimin, etc., the revolutionary army seized the official residence of the governor and government offices including fan, nie, etc. in Hubei. Rui Cheng fled in panic into the Chu-Yu Ship anchored by the river, and Zhang Biao, the controller of Qing army, also discarded the city and fled away. On the morning of 11th, the revolutionary army took the whole city of Wuchang. But the leaders such as Jiang Yiwu, Sun Wu disappeared then, thus the acephalous revolutionary army recommended Li Yuanhong, the assistant governor of Qing army, as the commander-in-chief, founded Hubei Military Government, proclaimed the abolishment of the Qing Dynastys imperialism and the founding of Republic of China, as well as published an open telegram for call to uprising of every province. As the beginning of the Revolution of 1911 (led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty), Wuchang Uprising played a most important role in raising upsurge of the democratic revolution, which also was called “the lead in launching the Revolution of 1911” since 1911 was the year of xinhai in traditional Chinese chronology.edit National government moved its capital to WuhanIn 1926, with the north extension of Northern Expedition, the center of Great Revolution shifted from the Pearl River basin to the Yangtze River basin. On November 26, the KMT Central Political Committee decided to move the capital to Wuhan. In middle December, most of the KMT central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners arrived in Wuhan, set up the temporary joint conference of central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners, performed the top functions of central party headquarters and National Government, and declared they would work in Wuhan on January 1, 1927 and decided to combined the three towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang into Wuhan City, called “Capital District. The National Government was located in the Nanyang Building in Hankou, while the central party headquarters and other organizations chose their locations in Hankou or Wuchang.edit Battle of WuhanMain article: Battle of WuhanIn early October in 1938, Japanese aggressors moved east and north respectively upon outskirts of Wuhan. As a result, numerous companies and enterprises and large amounts people had to withdraw from Wuhan to the west of Hubei and Sichuan. The KMT navy undertook the responsibility of defending the Yangtze River on patrol and covering the withdrawal. On 24 October, when overseeing the waters of the Yangtze River near the town of Jinkou (Jiangxia District in Wuhan) in Wuchang, the KMT warship Zhongshan come up against six Japanese planes. The planes took turns to dive, strafe and bomb the ship. Though two planes were eventually shot down, the Zhongshan warship sank down due to serious damage with 25 casualties.edit Completion and opening-to-traffic of the first Yangtze River bridgeThe project of building the first Yangtze River Bridge was regarded as one of the key projects during the period of the first five-year plan. The Engineering Bureau of the First Yangtze River Bridge, set up by the Ministry of Railway in April 1953, was responsible for the design and construction of the bridge. The document “Resolutions on Building the First Yangtze River Bridge was passed in the 203rd conference of State Council on 15 January 1954. The technical conference on the routes of the bridge, was held in Hankou on 15 January 1955, determined that the route from Tortoise Hill to Snake Hill was the best choice. On 25 October, the bridge proper was under construction. The same day in 1957 the whole project was completed and an opening-to-traffic ceremony was held on 15 October. The whole bridge was 1,670 m (5,479.00 ft) long, of which the superstratum was a highway with a width of 22.5 m (73.82 ft) and the substratum was a double-line railway with a width of 18 m (59.06 ft). The bridge proper was 1,156 m (3,792.65 ft) long with two pairs of eight piers and nine arches with a space of 128 m (419.95 ft) between each arch. Thanks to the First Yangtze River Bridge, Beijing-Wuhan and Guangdong-Wuhan railways were available and any place could be reached from Wuchang, Hankou to Hanyang. Thus Wuhan was a thoroughfare to nine provinces not only in reality but in name as well.Geography and climateWuhan is situated in the middle of Hubei Province, 113°41-115°05 East, 29°58-31°22 North, east of the Jianghan Plain, and the confluence of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Hanshui River.The metropolitan area comprises three parts - Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, commonly called the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (hence the name "Wuhan", combining "Wu" from the first city and "Han" from the other two). The consolidation of these three cities occurred in 1927 and Wuhan was thereby established. These three parts face each other across the rivers and are linked by bridges, including one of the first modern bridges in China, known as the "First Bridge". It is simple in geographical structure - low and flat in the middle and hilly in the south, with the Yangtze and Han rivers winding through the city. Wuhan occupies a land area of 8494.41 km2, most of which is plain and decorated with hills and a great number of lakes and pools.Wuhan's climate is humid subtropical (Koppen Cfa) with abundant rainfall and four distinctive seasons. Wuhan is known for its oppressively humid summers, when dewpoints can often reach 26 °C (79 °F) or more.3 Because of its hot summer weather, Wuhan is commonly known as one of the Three Furnaces of China, along with Nanjing and Chongqing. Spring and autumn are generally mild, while winter is cool with occasional snow. In the recent thirty years, the average annual rainfall is 1269 mm, mainly from June to August; annual temperature is 15.8-17.5, annual frost free period lasts 211 to 272 days and annual sunlight duration is 1810 to 2100 hours.TransportationBridgesWuhan has six bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also called the First Bridge, was built over the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in 1957, carrying the railroad directly across the river between Snake Hill (on the left in the picture below) and Turtle Hill. Before this bridge was built it could take up to an entire day to barge railcars across. Including its approaches, it is 5,511 feet (1680 m) long, and it accommodates both a double-track railway on a lower deck and a four lane roadway above. It was built with the assistance of advisers from the Soviet Union.The Second Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge, built of pre-stressed concrete, has a central span of 400 meters; it is 4,678 meters in length (including 1,877 meters of the main bridge) and 26.5 to 33.5 meters in width. Its main bridgeheads are 90 meters high each, pulling 392 thick slanting cables together in the shape of double fans, so that the central span of the bridge is well poised on the piers and the bridge's stability and vibration resistance are ensured. With six lanes on the deck, the bridge is designed to handle 50,000 motor vehicles passing every day. The bridge was completed in 1995.citation neededSecond bridgeThe Third Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was completed in September 2000. Located 8.6 kilometers southwest of the First Bridge, construction of Baishazhou Bridge started in 1997. With an investment of over 1.4 billion yuan (about 170 million U.S. dollars), the bridge, which is 3,586 meters long and 26.5 meters wide, has six lanes and has a capacity of 50,000 vehicles a day. The bridge is expected to serve as a major passage for the future Wuhan Ring Road, enormously easing the city's traffic