South Central China in the context of "Guangxi"

East China (Chinese: 华东; pinyin: huá dōng) is a geographical region in the People's Republic of China, mainly consisting of seven province-level administrative divisions, namely the provinces (from north to south) Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and the direct-administered municipality Shanghai.

The region was defined in 1945 as the jurisdiction area of the Central Committee's East China Bureau (华东局), which was a merger politburo agency of the Shandong Bureau and the Central China Bureau previously established during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the region included all the aforementioned provinces except Jiangxi, which was previously considered part of South Central China before being reassigned in 1961. The East China Bureau was abolished in 1966 due to the Cultural Revolution, but in 1970 the fourth five-year plan redefined the region as the East China Coordinated Region (华东协作区), which supported the logistics of the Jinan and Nanjing Military Regions. This geographical definition was retained after the economic reform of the 1980s.

Hunan 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 residing in an area of approximately 210,000 km (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.

The Pearl River (Chinese: 珠江; pinyin: Zhūjiāng; lit. 'pearl river', or 粤江; 粵江; Yuèjiāng; 'Yue river') is an extensive river system in southern China. "Pearl River" is often also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Pearl tributaries within Guangdong, specifically the Xi ('west'), Bei ('north'), and Dong ('east'). These rivers all ultimately flow into the South China Sea through the Pearl River Delta. Measured from the farthest reaches of the Xi River, the Pearl–Xi–Xun–Qian–Hongshui–Nanpan 2,400 km (1,500 mi) Pearl River system constitutes China's third-longest, after the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and its second largest by volume, after the Yangtze. The 453,700 km (175,200 sq mi) Pearl River Basin drains the majority of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces (collectively known as Liangguang), as well as parts of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Jiangxi; it also drains the northernmost parts of Vietnam's Northeast Cao Bằng and Lạng Sơn provinces. The Pearl River is famed as the river that flows through Guangzhou.

As well as referring to the system as a whole, the Pearl River name is applied to a specific branch within it. This Pearl River is the widest distributary within the delta, although notably short; the waters that converge east of the Bei are first referred to as the Pearl River just north of Guangzhou. The Pearl River's estuary, Bocca Tigris, is regularly dredged so as to keep it open for ocean vessels. The mouth of the Pearl River forms a large bay in the southeast of the delta, the Pearl River Estuary, the Bocca Tigris separates Shiziyang in the north, Lingdingyang in the south, and Jiuzhouyang at the southern tip of the estuary surrounded by the Wanshan Archipelago. This bay separates Macau and Zhuhai from Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Xiangtan (Chinese: 湘潭) is a prefecture-level city in east-central Hunan province, south-central China. The hometowns of several founding leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, including Chairman Mao Zedong, President Liu Shaoqi, and Marshal Peng Dehuai, are in Xiangtan's administration, as well as the hometowns of Qing dynasty and republic era painter Qi Baishi, scholar-general Zeng Guofan, and tennis player Peng Shuai.

Xiangtan forms a part of the Greater Changsha Metropolitan Region with Changsha as the core city along with Zhuzhou, also known as Changzhutan City Cluster, one of the core cities in Central China.