Dongting Lake (Chinese: 洞庭湖) is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan Province, China. It is a flood basin of the Yangtze River, so its volume depends on the season. The provinces of Hubei and Hunan are named after their location relative to the lake: Hubei means "North of the Lake" and Hunan, "South of the Lake".
Dongting Lake is famous in Chinese culture as the place of origin of dragon boat racing and is home to the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise.
Hubei is a province in Central China. It has the seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland provinces. Its provincial capital at Wuhan serves as a major political, cultural, and economic hub for the region.
Hubei is associated with the historical state of E that existed during the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1045 – 771 BCE). Its name means 'north of the lake', referring to Dongting Lake. It borders Henan to the north, Anhui and Jiangxi to the east, Hunan to the south, and Chongqing and Shaanxi to the west. The high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang in the west of the province.
Taihu (Chinese: 太湖), also known as Lake Tai or Lake Taihu, is a lake in the Yangtze Delta and the third largest freshwater lake in China. The lake is in Jiangsu province and a significant part of its southern shore forms its border with Zhejiang. With an area of 2,250 square kilometers (869 sq mi) and an average depth of 2 meters (6.6 ft), it is the third-largest freshwater lake entirely in China, after Poyang and Dongting. The lake contains about 90 islands, ranging in size from a few square meters to several square kilometers.
Lake Tai is linked to the Grand Canal and is the origin of a number of rivers, including the Suzhou Creek. The major cities around Taihu Lake include Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and Huzhou. These urban areas form the core of the lake's cultural and economic region. University-led hydrological and ecological studies note that these four cities are the primary urban centers surrounding the lake.
The Xiang River is the chief river of the Lake Dongting drainage system of the middle Yangtze, the largest river in Hunan Province, China. It is the second-largest tributary (after the Min River) in terms of surface runoff, the fifth-largest tributary by drainage area of the Yangtze tributaries. The river flows generally northeast through the provinces of Guangxi and Hunan, its tributaries reaching into Jiangxi and Guangdong.
Traditionally, it was regarded that the West (left) Branch is the Main Stream of the Upper Xiang, which rises in the Haiyang Mountains between Xing'an and Lingchuan counties of Guangxi. In the 1st national water census of China in 2011, the East Branch Xiao River, was identified as the Main Stem of the Upper Xiang. The Ping Island of Yongzhou is the meeting of the two streams, the West source originating from Guangxi and the East source of the Xiao River originating from Lanshan County of Hunan.
Yueyang, formerly known as Yuezhou or Baling, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern shores of Dongting Lake and the Yangtze river in the northeastern corner of Hunan Province in the People's Republic of China.
Yueyang has an administrative area of 14,896 km (5,751 sq mi) and the city proper, 304 km (117 sq mi). The population was 5,051,922 at the 2020 Chinese census whom 1,134,058 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made up of Yueyanglou District and Yunxi District, Junshan District not being conurbated. Yueyang is the only international trade port city in Hunan and a famous port city in China, at the same time, Yueyang's comprehensive economic strength ranks of Hunan second only to Changsha, the provincial capital.