Geographic coordinates: E110°15′-112°04′   N29°56′-31°34′

Population:  4.039 m (2008)

Area: 8339.7 sq mi

Average altitude:  164 ft

Average temperature:  60 ℉

Annual rainfall: 39-55 in

IDD: 86 – 0717

Situated at the eastern mouth of the gorges, Yichang is the administrative centre of nine surrounding counties. The construction of the Gezhou Dam, built in 1970s’, turned Yichang from a small town of 30,000 into a city. The Three Gorges Dam is only 27 miles upstream, although some houses and factories was submerged, a plethora of new buildings has been built higher up, in anticipation of the economic boom in the Yichang administrative region.

History papers show that as early as 278 BC the town was razed to the ground in a battle between the armies of Chu and Qin. In the Three Kingdoms period 50,000 Wu troops set fire to the encampments of the Shu army, utterly routing Liu Bei, Who retreated upriver to Baidi Cheng, city of White Emperor.

Yichang became a treaty port in April l877, in accordance with the Chefoo (Yantai) Convention of 1876 signed with Britain and continued to be the furthest inland treaty port for many years, as large merchant and passenger vessels were not yet able to navigate the gorges upstream to Chongqing. Here, cargo was unloaded from the larger boats plying the stretch of river between Yichang and Wuhan, and reloaded onto smaller ones running between Yichang and Chongqing.

During the warlord years of the early part of this century, Yichang revenue was greatly boosted by taxes imposed on boats carrying homegrown opium from Yunnan and Gui2hou Provinces by its Opium Suppression Bureau. During the war with Japan, the gorges above Yichang again acted as a barrier. When Wuhan fell to the Japanese in l938, Yichang became the centre for shipping essential personnel, machinery, libraries and museum collections up the Yangtze to Chongqing. After the Battle of Yichang in 1940 the Japanese capture of Yichang marked their furthest westward advance. The Japanese also used Yichang as a staging area for bombing raids over Chongqing.

The streets of the old town centre are lined with trees. Though the city wall was pulled down in 1929, the street names still indicate where it once stood (Eastern Ring Road, Southern Ring Road and so on). The main market is found just off Jiefang Lu. Along the waterfront a few old foreign buildings of the treaty port days can be seen.

Attractions

Chinese Sturgeon Museum   Three Gorges Dam Project   Gezhouba Water Conservancy Project