Get to know Hongshan District
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- Administrative area
- District · 市辖区
- Part of
- Wuhan
- Chinese name
- 洪山区
- Local areas
- District guide
Area & population
- Area in the source
- 480.20 km²
- Population · 2020
- 2,554,403
Source: cited geographic source, as of the dates shown.
Setting and landscape
The land is mostly plain, broken by hills and lakes. The district government names Guizi Hill (桂子山), Yujia Hill (喻家山), Nanwang Hill (南望山), Jiufeng Hill (九峰山), Huashan (花山) and Baihu Hill (白浒山), and lakes including East Lake (东湖), South Lake (南湖), Qingling Lake (青菱湖), Tangxun Lake (汤逊湖) and Yanxi Lake (严西湖). Ezhou (鄂州) lies to the east, Jiangxia District to the south, and Xinzhou District faces it across the Yangtze to the northeast.
History
Hong Hill was once called Dongshan (东山). Between 1234 and 1236 at the request of the Southern Song commander Meng Gong (孟珙), the Youji Chan Temple (幽济禅寺) was moved here from Mount Dahong (大洪山) in Suizhou, and the hill took the name Hongshan. As a district, Hongshan began in 1949 as one of three suburban districts south of the Yangtze and was re-formed in 1955. By 1976 it had become a large suburb ringing the city, and in 1986 it took over the Guanshan (关山), Shizishan (狮子山) and Gehua (葛化) subdistricts and the newly formed Luonan (珞南) subdistrict from Wuchang.
What to see
Chinese Wikipedia counts 16 institutions of higher education in the district, among them Huazhong University of Science and Technology (华中科技大学), Central China Normal University (华中师范大学), Wuhan University of Technology (武汉理工大学) and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (中南财经政法大学). The district government sits on Luoshi Road (珞狮路) in Luonan subdistrict.
The Yifu Museum of the China University of Geosciences (中国地质大学逸夫博物馆), on Lumo Road (鲁磨路), opened in 1982 as the museum of the Wuhan College of Geology (武汉地质学院) and took its present name when a new building, funded by the Shaw Foundation, was finished in 2003. In 2006 it became a national 4A tourist attraction, the first at a Chinese university. At the centre of its display wing is a dinosaur hall three storeys high, and its collection includes a Mandschurosaurus fossil 10.5 metres long from Jiayin County (嘉荫县) in Heilongjiang.
Food and local products
Hongshan caitai (洪山菜苔), the purple-red flowering stem also called red caitai, is a Wuhan specialty, already a known vegetable in the Tang and long sent from Hubei as tribute. The best is said to come from the ridges between Baotong Temple (宝通寺) and Zhuodaoquan (卓刀泉); in the early Republic, when Li Yuanhong (黎元洪) was president in Beiping (北平), he sent a courier to Hongshan for it every winter. An attempt to grow it in Beiping in soil shipped from Hongshan produced stems that were neither red nor fresh-tasting.
Highlights
- Yifu Museum, China University of Geosciences 中国地质大学逸夫博物馆: University natural-science museum with a three-storey dinosaur hall; national 4A attraction since 2006.
- East Lake 东湖: One of the lakes the district government names within Hongshan.
- Hongshan caitai 洪山菜苔: Purple-red flowering stem, known since the Tang and long sent as tribute.
Sources for this guide
洪山概貌 - 武汉市洪山区人民政府门户网站 · Hongshan District People's Government, Wuhan
洪山区 - 维基百科 · Chinese Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
中国地质大学逸夫博物馆 - 维基百科 · Chinese Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
Original English written from the listed sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer. Updated 2026-09-24.
Explore Hongshan District
Core places to explore, with English and Chinese names.
Places to explore around Hongshan District
The Yifu Museum building at the China University of Geosciences, Hongshan District, Wuhan · 中国地质大学逸夫博物馆外景，洪山区 Source-recorded photograph date: 2008-08-30.China University of Geosciences Yifu Museum中国地质大学逸夫博物馆
University geology museum in Wuhan with dinosaur skeletons, gems, minerals and a campus fossil forest, housed in a 2003 building by East Lake.
Read the place guide →
The administrative building of the Guanggu campus, Wuhan Botanical Garden · 中国科学院武汉植物园光谷园区办公楼 Source-recorded photograph date: 2018-07-17 08:33:43.Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences中国科学院武汉植物园
Chinese Academy of Sciences garden by East Lake with 17 specialty gardens, a national kiwifruit collection, aquatic plants and Three Gorges flora.
Read the place guide →Plan your visit
Getting there
Hongshan District is about 10 km in a straight line from central Wuhan. Search for 洪山区 in a map app to find stations and your accommodation.
Where to stay →Build your route
China University of Geosciences Yifu Museum and Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are both listed here. The linked place guides have entrance and visit details.
Continue with Wuhan →More in Wuhan
Sources & geographic information
Administrative names and parent areas: Official geographic directory · Reference date 2026-09-06.
Some facts checked against 洪山区 — Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Some facts checked against 中国地质大学逸夫博物馆 — Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo: China University of Geosciences Yifu Museum · User:Vmenkov · CC BY-SA 3.0. Full frame retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP. No retouching or changes to the photographed subject. Card displays may crop the view.
Photo: Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences · Sun Jiao (Interaccoonale) · CC BY-SA 4.0. Full frame retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP. No retouching or changes to the photographed subject. Card displays may crop the view.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Pins mark approximate centres, not entrances or boundaries.